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COILHOUSE

A LOVE LETTER TO ALTERNATIVE CULTURE

issued

Victorian Monsters

Dystopian Literature

Aural Pleasures

Retro-Futurist Fashion

Supervillain Survival Tips

COILHOUSE

-~ m &^

?! 4

|a v at a r|. w ARREN ELLIS

PAUL DUFFIELD

COILHOUSE

A LOVE LETTER TO ALTERNATIVE CULTURE

issued

FOUNDING EDITORS

Nadya Lev I Zoetica Ebb I Meredith Yayanos
nadyalev.com I biorequiem.com I theparlourtrick.com

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Mildred Von Hildegard
motheroflondon.com

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Cecilia MeLLi
flickr.com/photos/cecilia_melli

COPY CHIEF

Rachel Waters
myspace.com/_io

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Clayton James Cubitt
claytoncubitt.com

Hanno Reichel
nskstate.com

Rachel Waters
myspace.com/_io

Samuel R. Delany
pcc.com/staff/jay/delany

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Allan Amato
venuswept.org

Andrew Yoon
andrewyoon.com

Andy Julia
andyjulia.com

Clayton James Cubitt
claytoncubitt.com

David Hindley
davidhindley.com

Eugenio Recuenco
eugeniorecuenco.com

Johnny Quach
verumbrand.com

Matt Lee
dangerouslee.com

Taslimur
taslimur.com

CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS

Phineas Waldorf Steel
doctorsteel.com

Master Steerpike
steerpike.ru / artlebedev.com

Paul Komoda
paulkomoda.com

ADVERSTISING DIRECTOR

Nadya Lev
nadyalev.com

CONTACT

coilhouseOgmail.com

coilhouse.net

COILHOUSE THANKS Warren Ellis, Marina (9 Gianfranco Meza,
Donald Campbell, Nicomis Blalock, Michael Amorel, Suzanne
Gerber (Wurzeltod), James Renken, Vara Pappas, Peter Czernich,
Gala Darling, Mike and Annette, Tej Jaffe, Nicola Struthers,
The Edison Lounge, John Santerineross, Elegy Magazine, Cat
Le-Huy, Courtney Riot, Scott "Bunny" Spencer, Gooby Herms,
Lauren Goldberg, Rachel Brice, Jerem Morrow, Rob Reed, Kit
St0len, Joshua Zucker, Jhonen Vasquez, Mark Frauenfelder,
Cafe Nova Express, Madeline von Foerster, Wil Wheaton, Daniel
Hengeveld, Wayne Chambliss, David Forbes, Jake Evans, caffeine,
milkshakes, the midnight hour, and ourfamilies.

ON THE COVER

The cover image, taken by Andy Julia,
was specially modified for Coilhouse by
Nadya and Zo to turn the model into a
bald androgyne hooked on cyber-drugs.
The original golden-haired beauty can
be seen at andyjulia.com.

Photo: Andy Julia
Makeup: Marielle Loubet
Model: Nora Blumer studioklrp
Stylist: Maheva Ambresin
Hair: Sandra Kaiber B agency
Assistant: Laetitia Prieur

COILHOUSE

Letter from the Editors

PRINT IS NOT DEAD. Not even close. If anything, it's thriving. This kind of print, at least.

The age of the Internet may all but banish corporate media from print, but those of us with more refined tastes can relax. These days,
small press books and indie rags are flourishing. Technology has made it much easier for like-minded people from all over the world to
converge and collaborate. That's why we're here now, in your hot little hands.

Coilhouse launched as a blog last October, a love Letter to alternative culture. Over the months, we shared an obsessive dialogue with our
readers about our favorite topics: dark, whimsical, unconventional music, art, technology, fashion and fiction. But all of us desire more
than the 'wub, something honed and immutable. There's nothing like the weight of a book or a magazine in hand, turning the pages,
smelling the ink on your fingertips. Call it a fetish, if you like. Quoting David Renard, author of The Last Magazine-.

"What accounts for this irrepressible passion to publish? Printed publications are tactile, and, therefore, authoritative.
Holding a freshly printed and tightly bound article while whiffing the scent of its paper and ink and caressing its dull or
shiny, smooth pages cannot be equaled. Intimacy is key."

Intimacy, yes. Also quality, and finality.

We get to keep this. Years from nowwe can take it down from a shelf (or fish it out from behind the toilet tank, whatever), and it won't have
changed all that much. Ephemera in name only. A painstakingly proofread and color-corrected slice of summer, 2008.

Obviously, we're taking a bit of a chance here. There's no do-over, no edit feature... not to mention the uncertainties we face as a wee
upstart. But we're going for it. We have to. This is, quite simply, a leap of faith into your arms.

There's nowhere else we'd rather be.

NADYA, ZOETICA and MER

July 2008

PHOTOGRAPHERS Matt Lee and Andrew Yoon

COILHOUSE

jfyT'

1 INFORM

Interviews, excerpts, wisdom and fact

Doctor Steel's Multimedia Symbiosis

Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders

Jarboe: As She Lives and Breathes

All Yesterday's Parties

Table of contents

3 INFECT

Be your own architect! Fun and games

People as Pets

Be Your Own Supervillain

Infatuation // Imitation

Print to Fit! Coilhouse Paper Dolls

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2 INSPIRE

Visual stimulation and divine titillation

Eugenio Recuenco: Suehos Lucidos

Jessica Joslin's Wunderkammer Creatures

Laibach vs. Bach

Travis Louie: Monsters Amoung Us!

Hatmosphere

Saturnalia

The Sexy Side of Andy Julia

ILLUSTRATION Zoetica Ebb

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Jnydifferem people

I am constantly delighted by the amount of
inspiration and creative initiative set forth by
these brilliant people. Many who contact me
are those whose talents and sincere interests have
not been encouraged. They find in the movement
an incentive to pursue these sparks of brilliance
and they act on manifesting great things. To have
contact with these creators, even remotely through
the internet, is in turn very inspiring for me. One is
inevitably a result of one's environment. As many of
us are the dismal products of a fear- induced System,
we find our lives enriched when surrounded by
creativity and inspiration. This inspiring landscape is
the world in which I choose to live ... and thanks to
technology, I don't even have to leave my laboratory.

What's on the good Doctor's gramophone at the
moment?

Ah, well there is often a rather eclectic cornucopia of
aural madness on my gramophone. I enjoy everything
from vintage jazz of the 1930' s to the soundscapes of
Amon Tobin. I am an enthusiast of music from various
cultures as well as the work of Pink Floyd and Queen.
Any form of music that sparks the imagination is of
interest to me.

We here at Coilhouse also love the propaganda
aesthetic. Do you have a favorite piece of propaganda
art that you turn to when your army artists need a bit
of inspiration?

As of yet, I am personally responsible for creating the
propaganda artwork used to enlist my Soldiers. I have long
since been inspired by the artwork of J.C. Leyendecker,
Haddon Sandblom as well as various forms of political artwork
from all sides during the Second World War. Brilliant artists
during these wartime years knew how to create inspiring and
idealized visions of the world, which in my opinion haven't
been surpassed in recent years. I seek much inspiration from
these visual masters of propaganda.

Will the toys on the World Domination Toys website be
available for purchase in the near future?

Indeed, all of my conceptual creations shall become a reality in
the future. At this moment, they exist as prototypes intended
to spark the interest of those who discover them. Currently, I
lack the funds to produce each and every one of the products
displayed on www.worlddominationtoys.com, but with the
growth of my Army and the awareness they spread throughout the
world, it is only a matter of time before such global desires present
the opportunity to realize these creations in a physical form.

Part of your philosophy is the conviction that humanity is
subconsciously destroying itself to make way for artificial life.
Are your views at all influenced by the Singularity? How are
you preparing yourself and your army for the coming of this
Robot Apocalypse?

Ah grand! Yes indeed, the vision of Ray Kurzweil is one that I
certainly do find intriguing. Such an optimistic outlook of the future
is refreshing. I myself dream of transcending biology. So much of the
human condition is limited by our current, physical form. As humans
we have great potential yet we find ourselves trapped in a rather archaic
shell. Our software has yet to be tapped to its fullest ability, while our
hardware is constantly requiring maintenance. I look at humanity in its
current form, as does Mr. Kurzweil, as an evolutionary stepping stone
towards the birth of electronic life.

Regardless, technology will move ahead to seek out its own life. Though
at this time we have a great deal to do with how it is put to use. It is very
important for humans to change their paradigm, that is to change one's

perspective and patterns, to embrace a new vision of the future. We must evolve,
not only past our clunky bodies but beyond the primitive programs of our past.
We must transcend our insecurity and embrace our creativity. With these goals
the Singularity shall present to us a brilliant Utopia bathed in infinite possibilities.
As a side note, I shall be releasing several new bits of audio experimentation in
the near future; one song in particular is titled The Singularity.

In addition to your top hat, you wear an admirable amount of professional
hats; what's next for Doctor Steel the musician, as well as Doctor Steel the
future World Emperor?

My desire is to be forever expanding my creative experiences in all fields.

As a student I was condemned by those looking to categorize me into one

particular profession or another. My interests lie solely in manifesting ideas. I

have spent my life becoming as familiar as I can with a wide variety of tools.

Be it illustration, music, performing, writing, filmmaking or exploring the

functionality of the human mind. I am forever hungry to utilize all that I learn

to realize a concept. To this end, my ultimate vision is one that combines all

such aspects into one. The process of Multimedia Symbiosis is upon us, and

I envision the introduction of an absolutely convincing realm of immersive

virtual experiences in the near future. As exist the videogame designers of

today, there shall emerge the virtual reality designers of tomorrow. I look

forward to producing such creative reality engineering with my vision of a

Utopian Playland.

INTERVIEW Zoetica Ebb
ILLUSTRATION Phineas Waldorf Steel

^THROUGH THE

VALLEY OF THE

OF SPIDERS

Before Samuel Delany p I knew one type of science
fiction: an escapist theater of Laser guns, silver space
suits and Little green men. With my discovery of his work p
the genre divided Like a mutant cell before my eyes;
for the first time, I saw it as a poLymorphous-perverse
Landscape in which the Limits of human potential could
be stretched and condensed to infinity. As America's
first black and openly gay science fiction writer, Samuel
Delany, along with Joanna Russ and Octavia Butler,
showed me the striking ways in which fantastical other
worlds could be used to interrogate our own culture's
concepts of gender, sexuality and race. Delany's works
include Nova, Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection and Dhalgren.
His upcoming novel, Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders,
chronicles a romantic relationship that begins in the year
2007 and lasts for the next half-century, taking place
in our own post-Bush, post-9/11, post-hurricane crisis
future. What follows is an excerpt from this upcoming
work, which will be released in Fall "08.

INTRODUCTION Nadya Lev

£y SAMUEL R.

DELANY

In line at Thursday's outdoor market, they ran into Anne,
carrying her blue canvas bag. Over his shoulder, Eric had his orange
one. Between stalls of green and fuchsia rhubarb, red and yellow
tomatoes, green and red apples, and wooden trays of shaved ice spread
with mackerel, cod, and shellfish, Eric told her they'd put up a wind
trap for her around her skylight.

"See — " Shit stood beside his bicycle (he rode their heavier
purchases to the cabin; and, since he'd fallen and twisted his knee
badly enough that he no longer trusted himself on his bike, Eric
carried the lighter ones), explaining — "if you get a real hurricane,
like Edward, back in '10, there ain't nothin' gonna keep that thing
on. Don't be surprised if you lose your whole damn roof. But it'll
do for most. Those pre-fabs like you got are solid. When they first
started puttin' 'em up, I thought they'd come apart like matchwood.
But they surprised me. For somethin' that goes up in ten hours, they
hold together pretty well."

On Anne's sloping shingles, the trap was an eight-inch chimney of
metal-braced wood around the skylight's lower half. With wind from
the east, it served as a break and counteracted the Bernoulli effect
that tried to lift the whole thing off and fling it twenty or thirty feet
across the road in any wind over sixty miles an hour. When wind came
from the west, the trap caught the air and built up pressure to cut the
natural lift that a full chimney all around would have created.

Inside, over the kitchen's black floor, flowered with foot-wide
crimson and purple blossoms, Eric — on the upper steps of the
aluminum ladder — reached through the six-inch opening with his
cordless and buzzed the last screw into the last brace that held the
chimney wall vertical. Pulling his hand in, he scraped his knuckles
on the edge, muttered, "Fuck...!" and came down the ladder again, as
Shit walked in from outside.

"Well, if that don't do it, nothin' will." Shit grinned.

In bronze earrings and a bronze neck chain (and, like Shit,
barefoot), Anne said, "Hey, I can't thank y'all enough. I hope I'm
not being forward. But I've got a tub of ribs in my refrigerator. My
family was supposed to come out from Manchester this weekend. All
yesterday and the day before I was making ribs and potato salad — not
to mention three strawberry rhubarb pies. But my brother called this
morning and canceled. Last night he broke his ankle at some political
demonstration." Roughened from clay, she clasped her knuckley
hands before her military drab slacks. "Would y'all do a kindness to
an Alabama gal and have supper with me? It's nothin' fancy."

Eric laughed. "Well, that's nice, ma'am." He pointed a thumb at
Shit. "You know, I love 'im to death, but he ain't never learned no
table manners."

"Huh?" Shit said. "Hey, I can eat polite. When I have to."

"Don't be silly." Anne made a dismissive gesture and turned. "I'm
from forty miles south-west of Mobile — I had four brothers and
six uncles, about as country as you can get. Really, I'd appreciate the
company. Come on — we'll eat ribs, drink beer, watch television, and
swop lies. How's that sound?"

"Well," Eric said. "That's nice, but — " about to decline.

But Shit said, "Okay. Yeah. That sounds good."

So that's what they did.

There was potato salad and slaw —

Red and black and running with sauce, the ribs came out of the
kitchen's convection oven in a big aluminum bowl.

There were whipped turnips —

"I never had 'em before," Shit said. "You wouldn't be offended if
I passed on those?"

"Oh, for God's sakes." Anne came in with a dish towel over one
sunburned and freckled shoulder. "Eat what you want and forget the
rest."

— and green beans.

"Hey." Shit already had sauce in his beard. "These ribs are tender,
ma'am. I could gum the meat off these things, if I had to."

Eric said: "Do you think you could hold off and wait for the rest
of us before you got started? Grab a napkin and wipe the stuff off your
fur. We're company, now."

Shit blinked, surprised. "Oh, I'm sorry."

But Anne had gone out and came in now with beer. "Go on. It's
there to eat. Someone told me that y'all been together since y'all were
children — that y'all go back to the twentieth century."

Following Anne, they sat around the coffee table.
"Naw — we got together in July oh-seven." Eric chuckled. "We're
old, but we ain't that old."

Shit said: "We was born in the twentieth century — him in '90,
me in '88."

"That's wonderful." Turning to Shit she picked up a beer bottle.
"Can I open one of these for you? Maybe you'd like a glass ..."

"Don't waste a glass on 'im, ma'am," Eric said. "He wouldn't know
what to do with it."

"Course I do. Balance it on my head, toss up boiled peanuts, and
catch 'em in it." Shit grinned over missing teeth. "But, see, he does
know I'd rather drink out a bottle. I mean, if it's all right ...?"

"You can drink it any way you like." She laughed, and a moment
later the bottle cap fell on the coffee table's green top. "Here you are."
Then, with a questioning glance at Eric and a nod from him back,
onto a blue ceramic plate she served up turnips and beans and potato
salad, and passed it over.

Eric too was wary of the turnips. But he tasted a forkful. "These
are ... good."

"Mash 'em with vinegar, butter, lemon juice," Anne said. "There's
nothing better. You sure you don't want a taste, Mr. Haskell?"

Shit said: "Well, maybe ..."

K IF YOU GET A REAL HURRICANE,

LIKE EDWARD, BACK IN '10, THERE
AIN'T NOTHIN' GONNA KEEP
THAT THING ON 55

"That's just polite," Eric explained to Shit. "See, ma'am, he was
raised by his daddy — and like you said, his daddy was about as
country as you could get. Dynamite was the best man in the world ...
once I was sixteen and come down here, he raised me, too. But there
was never no mama in that house at all."

"See, Eric here," Shit said, "was my mama and my daddy and my
main fuck buddy — excuse me, there — once my daddy died. Eric
here's a pretty damn wonderful feller. I was nineteen — we met there
in Turpens truckstop. Right in the back John."

"Oh, yes," Anne said. "I've heard about that place."

"Yeah, it was kinda wild — sometimes it still is."

"Didn't they used to have a ladies night or something? Somebody
was telling me about that."

"Oh, yeah," Shit said.

"But that was later — in the thirties. It wasn't just a night. It was
a whole weekend — last weekend in the month, all during the winter.
They'd close the place down for men, and women would come from
all over — and cruise the halls just like guys. That's when we were
in Runcible, managing the Opera House. Turpens' dyke night's what
started bringing all the women in for the Settlement, here."

Anne chuckled. "You know, I think we've lost a lot of ground since
the thirties. That was a decade where there was real hope for people,
not just gays and lesbians — for everybody."

CQILHGUSE

COILHOUSE

"Yeah, well," Shit said. "But Eric and me got together a long time
before that, and ... in about two seconds, too. My daddy was right
there with me, and as soon as we went out, I asked him if he thought
there was any chance of me gettin' to this little guy again who'd come
in there said he was movin to the Harbor. And he just drove me home
and said, 'Why don't you wait and see?' Hell, I don't know what I
woulda done without Eric. Best partner you could have. He can read,
you know. And write. It's better when at least one of you can do that.
Hey — " Shit had just tried the turnips — "you know, these ain't bad?
Easy on the teeth, too."

"Mrnrn — "Anne forked up some potato salad — "I had a partner
up until two months ago. Her name was Deborah. But she was
young ... we were together for seven years." She looked down, then
up. "When you're nineteen — that's how old she was when I met her,
a student in my pottery class in Charlotte — someone thirty-five or
thirty-six seems worldly and knowing and romantic all at once. But
then, you reach twenty-six, and the thirty-five -year-old is suddenly on
the other side of forty; we start to look like one-time interesting has-
beens. That's what I turned into for her."

Shit asked: "You here waitin' for her to come
back?"

Anne shook her head.
"No — she's not coming

"See — " Shit finished his beer and set the bottle down — "that's
why we don't got no television — him and me. It's always telling
people how they should expect the people they love to give it all up
for them, and how the person they love owes them that. And if they
don't get it, they feel insulted and disrespected and got the right to
act crazy angry and bust the person's head open or kick 'em out. That
ain't right. You love somebody, sure, you try to make 'em happy. But
nobody owes you their whole life when you ain't there. That's crazy."

"Well, I guess I'm crazy, then." Something tightened in her voice.
"Because that's what I want. Believe me, to me it don't sound that
unusual."

"It ain't," Shit said. "That's what's wrong with it."

Eric wondered if Shit had gone too far. A few beers could make
Shit run on.

But Anne retreated into explanation. "Oh, of course I don't
want the person's whole life — though Deborah used to say I did.
I just wanted the security of knowing that the intimate part of our
relationship is ... only for us. And, yes, I do feel demeaned when I find
out she's ... oh, you know what I'm talking about. I'm willing to give
that up with other people. Why can't she?"

"Maybe," Shit said, "cause

"...WE USED TO MANAGE THE DIRTY shes ^ six And ma be

K. %Tt::^l MOVIE HOUSE, OVER IN RUNCIBLE.

have fun, have a good time.

A„d wen she shouM have WE NEVER EVEN HAD TO LEAVE THE

BUILDING TO GET ANYTHING WE
WANTED — NEITHER ONE OF US.
AND I MEAN ANYTHING. I THOUGHT
I'D DONE EVERYTHING WHEN WE
STARTED AT THAT PLACE. BUT WE
HADN'T TRIED NOTHIN' YET."

one. I want her to."

"Can't you just let her
run around," Eric asked, "and
have some hot soup waitin'
when she gets home — or
a good pot of coffee? That's
what I used to do whenever
he'd get randy and run off."

"Yeah." Shit dug into
more potato salad. "He makes
some good soup, too."

Eric said, "And he makes
good coffee."

"The coffee was for when
he was cattin' around." Shit
took another big bite.

"I suppose," Anne said, "men can do that — some of them. Gay
men, I mean. Some women can, too. But I turn into a crazed, jealous
harridan, and when she'd come back I couldn't understand how she
could do that to someone she loved."

"Sometimes — " Shit pulled more meat from a rib — "it's pretty
easy. And with him," he glanced at Eric, "he says he likes it — 'cause I
always come back horny as a motherfucker — excuse my French. He
sure did. You know, it ain't somethin' she's doin' to you. She's doin' it
to someone else."

"Well," Anne said, "that's the problem. And it makes me act like
somebody I don't like very much."

"Now, you remember," Eric said, "a long time ago? I did tell you
once, Shit, I didn't care about what you did with other people. But
sometimes, it could make you act pretty funny around me when you
got back. That would get me a little crazy, sometimes."

"Yeah, I do remember that. I thought about that one a long time.
I changed the way I acted, too, didn't I?"

"Yeah. You did."

nobody's tempted you, yet.
Aw, hell — it used to make
me angry, seein' people, gay
ones, straight ones, getting'
all twisted out of shape 'cause
they thought the world owed
them that. Now, it just makes
me sad, 'cause so many really
nice people, like you, are all
walkin' around unhappy,
thinkin' they ought to had
somethin' that, because they
can't get it, now everybody
else thinks they're fools or
stupid."

"Well, I dorit think I'm a
fool for wantin' it."

"But you think you're
a fool for puttin' up with
not havin' it — 'cause the
television says you're supposed to have it."

"You mean you think — " Anne managed a smile, but Eric
thought she had to work at it — "I am a fool for wanting it?"

"/didn't say it," Shit said. "But him and me" — he glanced at
Eric — "done okay without it."
"You're lucky."

"Naw," Shit said, "we just stay away from the TV."
"You know, for all his talk," Eric said, "we don't do too much
tomcattin' around no more — neither one of us." He chuckled. "It's
easy for him to talk, now we're getting' old — "

" — and ugly, too." Shit laughed. "It was one thing when we used
to manage the dirty movie house, over in Runcible. It was all just
downstairs from us. We never even had to leave the building to get
anything we wanted — neither one of us. And I mean anything. I
thought I'd done everything when we started at that place. But we
hadn't tried nothin' yet."
Nodding, Eric chuckled.

"But right now, we're probably the only ones who can stand each
other in the sack, anyway — "

COILHOUSE

Anne looked up and, assumed to be as late as 2002. As well, it could make out,

smiling, shook her head at among those ribbons, the faint emissions of many millions

the notion's outrageousness. of what were called, somewhat inappropriately, "dead

But Eric noticed she did galaxies," alternate ribbons of galaxies older than the bright

not contradict Shit. ones people had grown used to, made up of billions of small

"It's funny." Anne sighed. dim stars, most all but extinguished, which comprised as

"As nice as Gilead is, and as much much as a third of the matter in the greater multiverse — not

fun as it is living in the Settlement, the fabled and still mysterious "dark matter," but something

sometimes I think you can find a like it. The announcer talked of "weird galaxies" swept clean
version of what I just told you in nrAni r UrtlAf TUCV of all black holes, and the great rent in the web — the Axis

one-out-of-three houses all along of Evil, as its discoverers at Imperial College, London, Kate

Settlement Road. Really, they ought Land and Joao Magueijo, had named it back in 2005 — and

to call it Heartbreak Highway. the compensatory bright spot among the galaxies, two or three

Anyway — " She sat back and looked hundred thousand light years away.

around her living room — "you can't "That Axis of Evil," Eric said. "That's like the Dump. And

want to spend the evenin' hearing about the bright spot is like the Settlement out here ..." He looked at

another old dyke's heartaches." the TV flicker on Anne and Shits concentrated faces. Neither

"Damn," Shit said. "You ain't old. I bet had said anything,

you ain't forty." Over an image of headlights streaming through the

Anne looked at him sideways. "Shit, you night along intertwined highway underpasses and overpasses,

are a liar headed for hell." intersecting and interweaving roadways near some city, the

(Eric had noted she did not use his announcer intoned: "Consider each headlight here a collection

partner's name often, but when she did, it had of many galaxies, each galaxy made up of two to six billion

a decisiveness he liked.) "I'm nearer fifty. You're stars, rotating around a central black hole, moving along
trying to be polite — " TLICDCDCOKI through infinite night. Now assume we can see much better

Below palm fronds, on the electronic equipment than we ordinarily do, and ... watch ..." The scene switched to
by the wall a light changed from red to green. - u -w . (\\m^ tne green fire of nighttime cameras and, between the streaming

Simultaneously, a bell sounded three times. ^ highways, they made out sheets of marshy water, and, here and

"Oh." Anne looked over at it. "I'd said something there, stretching through them, strips of dark land. "Think of the

about watching television. There is a program I'd streams of cars with headlights as ribbons of visible galaxies. The

wanted to see ... but if it's not something that interests water that we can see on either side of the highway is the empty

you, I'm recording it anyway. I can watch it later. You space between those galactic ribbons. The struts of land, here

said you two weren't really — " and there between the roadways through the water, are like

"No, ma'am," Shit said. "No. Let's watch your show." the ordinarily invisible ribbons of 'dead galaxies,' which weave

"With all his talk about TV," Eric said, "as long as it's at beside and between them ..."

somebody else's house, there ain't nothin' he likes more than "I never seen nothing like that on no highway — "

watchin' television." y "Yes, we have, Shit — when we went with Mama Grace to take

"He's right," Shit said. "Don't mind my runnin' on ..." ^8p / his furniture up to Savannah."

"Oh," Anne said. "I see. Well, this one shouldn't bother /T\\ After an hour and a half of galactic and stellar images, it was

you too much. It's a science program." Anne turned in her chair, I over,

waved one hand. "Now, see — " Anne waved the show off. The screens split and

The wall opened. backed into the walls — "if my brother had come up, we'd have had

Each a meter high and a meter- and-a-half side to side, three to watch the next program. That's a show about how the world is

screens slipped forward and joined along their edges, to make a only six thousand years old and all the species were put here ready

single, curved sixteen-foot screen, end to end. The blues and reds made. And all variations from that original pattern are evil" — she

of the title and opening scenes slid across, gaining a third dimension. laughed — "like us. They say homosexuality only started forty years

Shooting bits of light, gleaming letters, and numbers leapt out into ago when the Arabs blew up the towers in New York. The planes that

the room, then retreated deep within. Opening drumbeats sounded. ran into them released a special gas that started turning Americans

The show — the announcer, an authoritative woman with a gay."

European accent, explained — concerned the universe. Largely, it "Huh?" Shit said. "I'm sixty one — and I remember when them

would survey radio pictures from the Yang-Kopffus Doppler Array, a things come down. I been queer all my life — a long time before that,

collection of some twelve hundred radio dishes that had taken seven And so was my daddy."

countries twelve years to send up, arranged in a pattern between the Anne laughed. "Now, don't overdo it, Mr. Haskell. How could

orbit of Saturn and the orbit of Jupiter, each just under six-hundred your father have been gay?"

kilometers from the next, so that they were able to "duplicate" the "Well, he was."

image received on "an eye with a retina half again the area of the "And what about all those famous people who were supposed to

planet Earth, stretched out flat." When its images were gathered and have been gay — Shakespeare and Sappho and that Woolf woman

properly enhanced, the Yang-Kopffus could observe the red dwarfs and Plato and Alexander the Great?" Several restaurants and even

and their planets — even continental forms on them — within fifty clothing stores by now in the Settlement displayed posters of famous

light years; more, it observed the ribbons formed by the millions of lesbians and gay men. Eric had pointed them out to Shit,

galaxies weaving through a universe three times the size it had been " That s supposed to be part of the plot to fool people into thinking

it's existed longer than it has — and besides, they weren't Americans."

"Baldwin...?"

"He was African American." Anne laughed. "Apparently they
don't count either."

Shit grunted.

Eric said, "That Axis of Evil was enough to make you think that
was the religious program."

Anne laughed. "Sometimes that's what it looks like. Well,
whatever — the point is," she went on, "that's called a science
program, too. And people believe it. I don't see how folks can watch
both of them and not realize one of them is taking them for a ride.
Of course — " she eased forward in her chair — "most people don't
watch both."

"Probably that's why / don't watch it," Eric said. Then he said,
"Thank you for dinner, Ms. Frazier. That was good. And that show
was interestin'. But we gotta get home. Usually we ain't out this late."

"That's a big television," Shit said. "Your eyes could get tired,
watchin' that thing."

"You don't have a television at all — even a little one?" She walked
behind them to the door. Finally, though, she said: "I'd hate to think

all the pain I've suffered is

THE ANNOUNCER TALKED OF "WEIRD

need to complete the sentence.

When they turned onto the path toward their own cabin, Shit
asked, "Did that stuff on the TV there make sense to you?"

"Some of it," Eric said. "Yeah. I guess so."

As they walked, they looked up.

"I don't see no ribbons or webs of stars — or galaxies. They're
just ... stars all over the place, like always. I mean ... the Milky Way
over there. Maybe that's what they were talkin about?"

"Naw," Eric said. "That's just our own galaxy, from where we're at
inside it. We're lookin' at it on edge. That's why it looks like that."

"What's a galaxy, anyway? Just a whole lotta stars?"

"Yeah," Eric said. "Basically. They swirl around together, a lot of
times in a spiral. You seen, they had pictures of 'em on the show."

"Yeah ..." Shit said, pondering.

On either side the road, crickets scritched through the night.

Usually Eric did not think too much of Shit as a social philosopher,
though he kept his council. But now he said, "Hey — I liked what
you were sayin' in there to her — before the show."

"Mmm" Shit said, as if still considering. "But I could tell she was
still hurtin' — over that Deborah. That's why I backed off."

"Yeah, I know you

GALAXIES" SWEPT CLEAN OF ALL
BLACK HOLES, AND THE GREAT RENT IN
THE WEB — THE AXIS OF EVIL, AS ITS
DISCOVERERS AT IMPERIAL COLLEGE,
LONDON, KATE LAND AND JOAO
MAGUEIJO, HAD NAMED IT BACK IN 2005

just because I'm a dupe to
social conventions."

"Well," Shit said,
"most of the pain most
people suffer is because
'what should' is so far
away from 'what is,' I
mean unless it's a physical
pain — and even then."

"Last time I was over
in Montgomery, I saw a
tree nursery that had some
willows they said they
could ship right out here
to the island for me. I was
thinking about getting a
couple for the back."

"You gotta watch out for them willows," Eric said. "The roots can
do in your foundation. And run havoc on your water supply while
they're doin' it, too."

"Pshaw!" Ann laughed, lingering at the doorway. "They're pretty!
Now, here's your money for the wind trap. It's all there, like we
agreed."

"Ma'am, after that dinner — " Shit shook his head — "I don't
know if we can charge you for — "

" Course you can! Go on take this, now. I don't want to hear that.
You did the work. Take your money."

"Well, thank you." Eric took the sheaf of hundreds, folded them,
and put them in the pocket of his shirt with the torn off sleeves.
"Good night, ma'am."

Shit said: "Good night, ma'am."

"Good night," she said. "And thank y'all for keeping an old lady
company." Behind them, the door closed. When they'd stepped out,
the front light had come on.

They started down the lawn path to the dirt road. Once they were
beyond the motion detector's range, the light went out again. Between
the trees, as their eyes adjusted, stars broke through the moonless dark.
"I hope she thinks twice about them willows," Eric said.

"Long as she puts 'em a good ways off from the house ..." Shit
said. It was dark. They knew each other well enough for him not to

did," Eric said. "I liked
that, too."

Then Shit said: "You
think she wanted to fuck
us?"

"What?" Eric said.
"Huh? Why you sayin'
that, Shit?"

'"Cause she was sittin'
around with us, all night,
with no top on and her
tits hangin' out."

"Well, you don't have
no shirt on either — and
yours are startin' to hang a
little, too, there, son."

"Yeah. But she's a

"Come on, Shit. She's a lesbian. That's the way most women walk
around today — at least out here in the Settlement. You tryin' to
pretend that for the last thirty-five or forty years, you ain't never seen
women goin' around Runciple and the Harbor topless before? I mean,
even in the show tonight — "

"Yeah," Shit said. "But that's in public. This was in private —
alone with two old men she don't hardly know."

"Yeah — two gay old men, remember? Hey," Eric said, "if you're
really interested, you can always go back, ring the bell, and ask if she
wants you to spend the night. I ain't gonna stop you."

"Naw," Shit said. "I ain't that interested. I was wonderin', that's
all."

"Well, I wasn't."

A minute later, Shit put his hand on Eric's shoulder and leaned in
as they walked. "You know we could both go back and see if she wants
to take on the two of us ..."

"/ ain't that interested," Eric said. "You're a mess, Shit."

"Then — " Shit stood up again, though he left his hand on Eric's
shoulder — "I guess I'll just have to get you home in bed and rub all
over you and pretend like she did, there, so I can come all over your
belly." Eric said: "If you can stay awake that long and don't fall asleep
in the middle."

"Oh, you're always tryin' to be so funny, there."

Yawning, Eric said: "We're both pretty tired tonight. But we could
do it in the mornin'. That's always your favorite time anyway."

Shit grunted. "Aw, come on. When I get up tomorrow, you're
gonna be sittin' out on the steps, readin' your damned book, waitin'
for me to get up and make you some coffee."

Eric chuckled. "Yeah, probably." He looked off the edges of the
dark road. "Actually, I gotta fill out that government stuff tomorrow.
And I do gotta get back to my book again. I almost understood it,
this time."

"You say that every time you read it. You only promised Mama
Grace you'd read it three times through. You finished them readin's a
long time back — "

"But every time I read it, I get some more out of it. That's why
I keep goin' through it again. I wonder how Mama Grace is doin',
anyway?"

"Probably he's dead an' buried."

"That'd be a shame." Eric signed. "I hope not. But ... you may
be right." They wandered on over the rise. In the dark a sea breeze
touched their faces, as they started down their side of the hill.

"Hey." Shit's hand fell from Eric's shoulder. "You liked them
turnips?"

"Yeah," Eric said. "They were good."

"They didn't taste like much of nothin'" — they veered at a
bend — "to me. But they was easy to eat."

THAT'S A SHOW ABOUT HOW
THE WORLD IS ONLY SIX
THOUSAND YEARS OLD AND
ALL THE SPECIES WERE PUT
HERE READY MADE. AND ALL
VARIATIONS FROM THAT ORIGINAL
PATTERN ARE EVIL" — SHE
LAUGHED —"LIKE US. THEY SAY
HOMOSEXUALITY ONLY STARTED
FORTY YEARS AGO WHEN THE
ARABS BLEW UP THE TOWERS
IN NEW YORK. THE PLANES THAT
RAN INTO THEM RELEASED
A SPECIAL GAS THAT STARTED
TURNING AMERICANS GAY. "

The next morning, Eric went out to sit on the kitchen steps of their
own cabin. He had a sheaf of government forms, a ballpoint pen that
worked, a rock — and eighteen inches of pine planking.

Sitting slowly on the middle stair, he put the plank over the knees
of his frayed jeans, and, on the step beside him, used the rock as a
paperweight. One at a time he began to fill them out.

When he'd been working fifteen minutes, Shit stepped around
him, barefooted. "Here's some coffee." He held down the mug. Eric
had a yellow one that said Shit. Shit had a brown one that said Piss.
Shit had brought them both in Turpens for a joke — long enough ago
so that neither thought much today about what they said. "You fillin'
out them government papers you got in the mail?"

"Un-huh." Eric raised his reading glasses up to his forehead.
"Thanks." He took the mug and sipped. "That's good."

Down the grass slope, the ocean glittered beyond low rocks,
stretching to the earth's edge, under a September morning neither
overly brilliant, particularly gray, uniformly overcast, nor crystallinely
clear.

Standing, Shit squinted at the water. "Wished I knew why you had
to fill out so many forms just to be allowed to get old."

Eric pulled down his glasses:

... last name, first name, name of domestic partner, date of birth.
Carefully, Eric filled them in. "Well, ain't you glad you got me to do
it for you?" He blinked at the sea, which for so long had been his
image for the repository of all past time — his own, history's, anyone
else's — though, after last night, he retained an inkling of how much
bigger and older the rest of the universe was than the sea.

Intermingled webs of blue and silver, the water ended at the day's
edge, which, this morning, Eric realized was a robin's eggshell to
cut him — and all humanity — off from any further glimpse of the
universe, at least anything further than the sun, any dimmer than the
moon.

I envision the scene (and most of the book) taking place in and around
a newly burgeoning Lesbian art colony on an island (called Gilead) off the
coast of Georgia in about fifty-seven or fifty-eight years — somewhat like
North Hampton or even Provincetown, today. The books gives about 30
cross-sections of the lives of the main characters, Eric and Shit, from their
teenage years up through Shits death when Eric is in his seventies. (It starts
in 2007, when Eric is sixteen.) This is about fifteen years before that. It's
not really a science fiction novel — though I wouldn't mind anyone c
it that. Still, much of it takes place in our future. - Samuel Delany

PHOTOGRAPHERS Jill Williams. Wim Van Der Hulst

AN INTERVIEW WITH JARBOE

The oracular, incomparable musician known as Jarboe first came to renown as a core member of Swans. Her limber
voice can shift from gospel crooning to mind-shattering p guttural howls at a moment's notice, and her stage presence is
nothing less than supernatural. In the decade following Swans' disbandment, Jarboe has released 14 solo albums, and
her career continues to blossom. Whether she's flying solo or collaborating with fellow iconoclasts (like Blixa Bargeld,
Maynard Keenan, Lydia Lunch, Jim Thirlwell, Neurosis, or Lustmord, to name a few), this fearless woman seems to
revel in pushing her own creative and physical boundaries. Coilhouse caught up to her at her home in Georgia earlier
this year for a brief but fascinating interview about growth, trauma, joy and rebirth.

COILHOUSE

In an interview a while back, a gearhead asked you what your
favorite/most important piece of equipment was. You answered
simply "my voice." You're a very physical performer with a lot of vocal
training, and quite body-conscious in your lyrics as well. How do you
stay healthy and at ease in your own body?

JAR BO E Actually, I give it hell all the time. I have come near death
repeatedly due to my risky activities. I have always pushed my body very
hard. My mind and emotions as well. The nature of who I am . . . the
nature of the work. The nature of the beast. It has never been a decision
to live this way. It is inherent nature. I do things like go jogging and long
walks and yoga and meditate but I also live pretty fearlessly and do things
like travel alone to a dangerous war zone because I needed to be in that
energy to see for myself what was happening and see for myself to explore
the war of the human heart.

Onstage you often seem to be channeling something much larger than

yourself. I once asked you if you felt like you were a conduit for some

bigger force, or thought that possession was a real possibility. You

said "of course, yes!" Watching you up there, it's not hard to believe.

Yet, away from your musical/performing life, you're quite down to

earth, ever the gracious Southern belle. How do you balance these two

aspects of being? Where and when do you feel most comfortable? Most

"yourself"?

It depends on which "self" you refer to. I realized a long time ago that I am of

multiple personas. It is like one is deeper and is buried within another. The

"real" me or the me with no self-consciousness at all is the

me in "performance" - if you can call it that. Diamanda

[Galas] does not like that term and I can understand

why. It is seen and heard by others so in that way, it is a

performance. But to the person giving the performance,

it is not a performance per se because that implies some

kind of artifice whereas nothing could be further from

the truth. So to answer you, I feel most comfortable,

most real, in the moment of "performance."

CDILHOUSE

Recently I was talking with a close friend, a renowned dancer and
yoga teacher who, like you, is a world traveler and seeker. We were
discussing some pretty heavy stuff: trauma, loss, rage, regret, and
rebirth. I'm paraphrasing, but she said "at some point in your life,
maybe many times, you go through an ordeal that completely carves
you out. It's excruciating, but you have to be open to the process of
getting gutted." Her thought was that we can only accept fulfillment
after being completely hollowed out. I was immediately reminded me
of you: tender-hearted yet a self-described tough cookie, a survivor, and
an oracle. You're never one to shy away from the confrontations that
come with evolving, and your art reflects this. Any thoughts you would
like to share about how to strike a balance? How does one become a
fully actualized human being, and what actions will help such a person
to stay vibrant?

You need to be honest with yourself. True to you. I have been "hollowed
out" numerous times in my life. An example of consciousness shifting is
when I was brought home from the hospital after an accident in 2001 in
which my skull was fractured and a frontal lobe was pierced with a small
fragment of bone and I experienced seizures. I felt like a mindless zombie
at that time and all I could do for the most part as I recovered was sit and
stare. Yet, I was internally determined to come back with a majestic and
far-ranging album and to create from the actual experience. One example
of creating from an ordeal or shift - is the song entitled "Seizure" on the
Neurosis andjarboe album which has words I wrote in my journal after the
head injury.

I WAS BROUGHT HOME FROM THE
HOSPITAL AFTER AN ACCIDENT IN 2001
IN WHICH MY SKULL WAS FRACTURED
AND A FRONTAL LOBE WAS PIERCED

Through the 90s you ran the Swans website. You've
been running your own site, The Living Jarboe,
for several years now and the business end of your
musical life is primarily maintained from there. In
addition, your Artery journal and interviews with
other artists have kept it a creative outlet for you. How
has the Internet changed the way you do business and
communicate with fans? What are the benefits (or
possible hindrances) of staying independent and web-
oriented? Also, you signed with End Records recently.
How will that effect or change things?

The Internet has made it possible to have direct contact with the people
who are interested in my work. It has created the opportunity to do work
solely for them that is only available from my website. I am aware of
the places around the world where people live, and their names. It is a
fascinating process.

I realized that to align with a label only enhances what I do because it
is allied forces. A label has the resources from the power of "family" to
enable promotion and alignment with avenues unattainable through
purely DIY. It is important to align with the right company, obviously. I
feel that The End is that company. Atavistic was great in that it facilitated
6 CDs - 4 were reissues. Some of my work remains web only at this time
on thelivingjarboe.com.

When we first met, your epic collaborative effort Men was just about
to come out after six long years of hard work. It received rave reviews.
How are you feeling about the outcome of that chapter of your life?

Albums are always markers for a time in your life. Having done so many
albums now, I can marvel at all those different chapters of my life. The
furious intensity, the overwhelming energy of that expression ... it can be
surreal to realize how closely albums are journals of your life.

WITH A SMALL FRAGMENT OF BONE ...
YET I WAS INTERNALLY DETERMINED TO
COME BACK WITH A MAJESTIC AND
FAR-RANGING ALBUM AND TO CREATE
FROM THE ACTUAL EXPERIENCE. *>

I think true strength is exemplified by remaining open and vulnerable.
If you are open and vulnerable in your heart, you are fearless. You have
been touched by fear and so it can no longer harm you as you have come
face to face with it, with yourself. Remaining vibrant and active to me is
the same as remaining curious about life. "Knowing" less and therefore
always learning. It is too easy to become jaded. Why not take the other
path and embrace innocence and wonder and interest? A friend of my
parents called me "jaded" when I was 6 years old. I have never forgotten
that moment. As a result, I have been conscious of not letting cynicism
and world-weariness and bitterness poison my heart. Buddhism has been
the key in my life to alleviate those states. If I were to suggest one thing,
it would be to meditate for 10 minutes a day and focus on your breath for
these ten minutes and nothing else. This is a step towards becoming fully
actualized in my opinion.

And even a tough cookie becomes soft when you put it in the microwave.

Jarboe's collaboration with Jesu's Justin K. Broadrick, titled /2, was
just released on The End Records. Her latest solo album, recorded
earlier this year at Menegroth Studio in NYC, is coming soon. Visit
www.thelivingjarboe.com for regular updates.

INTERVIEW Meredith Yayanos

"POSSESSED, no Longer herself / the priestess became the goddess"

ALL YESTERDAY'S

PARTIES

Those knowing eyes, the sweaty, uninhibited faces; somehow they Look more feral, more haunted and dangerous
than the club kids of today. Of course, for the most part it's an illusion. In any scene, the "generation that came before"
always has a kind of fairy glamour. But there's some truth there, too. Photographer David Hindley tells Coilhouse
editor Mildred Von what it was like to capture that truth at the notorious London gothic nightclub, Slimelight.

By 1995, I was hooked, going to Slimelight was more of a lifestyle than
a night out. Missing a single weekend? "Don't be bloody stupid." I left
the club with a million images burnt into my mind's eye, so it was only a
matter of time before I shot there. I didn't like the idea of walking around
with a 35mm camera with a flash, as this leads to the wrong kind of look
and feel (plus, Slime had a no-camera policy). I could only set up a studio-
style shoot on one of the stepped corridors used as a fire escape. The third-
step concept fell into my lap and turned out to be the only direction I gave
to anybody in front of the camera. It went a little like this: "What are you
doing?" / "Taking pictures." / "Why?" / "I take pictures for a living but I'm
doing this for fun." / "Will you take my picture then?"/ "Sure." / "What
do you want me to do?" / "Anything on the third step."

So there you have it. The voyeuristic nature of photography seemed to
be magnified in this location and people gave themselves readily. It was

just a matter of point and shoot. Big people seemed to grow, small people
shrank, goths got darker, punks got louder and the heroin chic climbed the
walls, all with the same direction of "anything on the third step."

Being tucked away hidden on a stairwell lost in the maze that is the
Slimelight was not the best of locations. You can't be in two places at one
time, so scouting for people was impossible. This left me shooting only
the people that happened by my setup. I know there were more beautiful,
weird, better-dressed, darker freaky people out there but I was more than
happy with the images I was finding and how genuine everyone was.
Slimelight had a perverse romance that was lost in the purple floppy one-
love sexless rave scene. At its peak the Slime attracted the most incredible
creatures, dressed to kill and with a mind to do it! Men were men, women
were women, men were women, and women were men; the one thing
we had in common was that everyone dressed up or down to impress.

TEXT AND IMAGES David Hindley

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THOUGHTS ON

NEOGENDER

TO FEMALE TRANSSEXUAL.

actured vagina. A Necr

This is genital origami, the cock cut open, carved and folded, crafted by
techniques with names like Penile Inversion, the Suporn Technique, and
the Wilson Method. The head of the cock morphs into the neoclit. In some
methods the scrotal skin becomes the neovaginal canal.

I don't know which methods were used in the creation of this particular
neovagina, but surely this is art of the highest caliber. Sculpture in flesh

tissue and nerve bundles

Is it subtractive sculpture, like Michelangelo's Pieta, or David? Is the
surgeon removing and reshaping a raw outer form crudely delivered by
nature, slowly, painfully revealing the inner form of his patient's mind's
eye? No, both inner and outer forms were delivered by nature, nested
possibilities contradicting each other. Which should be considered natural?
As in fetal development, male nested inside of female, female morphing
into male. We all start out the same.

this is a third sex. Ihe concept or a third sex is one thats been
for centuries in Indian and Thai cultures, and has come in and out

around for centuries in .

of popularity in the Western world in modern times. Do we need to have
a binary view of gender? Is it either/or?

She's had her Adam's Apple shaved off through an incision in her throat.
She's had breasts created. She floods her body with hormones. After her
vaginoplasty she ruptured and almost bled to death.

She almost died to become who she was meant to be. This is being born
again as no Christian could ever conceive of. When asked what the most
important possession in the world was to her, she simply presented a small
white plastic object, two by three inches.

IMAGES AND TEXT Clayton Tames Cubitt

INSPIRE

ILLUSTRATION Zoetica Ebb

SUENOS LUCIDOS

The waking dreams of Eugenio Recuenco

A figure emerges from behind a curtain on a tempestuous
sea with lantern in hand, casting light into a world where
Spanish fashion photographer Eugenio Recuenco 's
phantasmagoric dreams take shape. Here, clothes are
only minor actors in scenes that frequently pay homage
to classical paintings and film in acts of storytelling
unparalleled in the fashion world. Often surreal and
sometimes unnerving, each piece entreats the viewer to
take a closer look at the artist's most indulgent fantasies.
Whether we are lured by the details of a hollow woman
hiding the throne of Christ beneath her skirts or drawn
to watch a moldering Sleeping Beauty from the dark
corners of her room, Recuenco makes voveurs of us all.

INTRODUCTION Rachel Foster

ART DIRECTOR E

ARTIST Lewis Am

POST PRODUCTION P;

PHOTOGRAPHER ASSISTANT Germa
Dtero POST PRODUCTION ASSISTANT (

HAIR STILYST D

Your images have a lot of fairy tale elements. Were you told a lot of
fairy tales as a child? Are there any tales or bits of folklore that still
inspire you now?

EUGENIO RECUENCO The truth is that they probably did tell me fairy
tales, but not especially more than usual. I wasn't too keen on them
until the time in my life when my daughter was born. It was then that I
rediscovered them and saw how macabre a lot of them were. I was amazed
seeing myself telling her those histories that were so cruel. Really there isn't
one story that inspired me in particular. I take them as I discover them
along the way and search for the aesthetic potential in them.

In addition to photography, you've also directed some short
commercial films. How is working with a film different than taking
still photographs for you?

The technique is totally different. You know the light you want, but you
have no clue what you have to do to achieve the same result. You have to
learn to be in command of a really big team, but in other ways I notice
that I go back being as ingenuous as I was when I started photography, and
that's something I love.

How did you first decide that you wanted to be a photographer?

I studied Fine Arts with the speciality of Painting and I mixed my
photographs with painting, making collages that I painted over. Later on,

my paintings turned into installations and separated from the photography
work, until in the end they met again and the installations now exist in
some cases to support of the photo and in other cases thev serve as the

scenery of the photo itself.

Many of your photo shoots are collaboration with Art Director
Eric Dover (www.ericdoverstudio.com). How do you and Eric work
together?

I let him know the ideas I have. He always understands me straight
away and that saves me endless conversations. I direct the creation of the
environment and at the same time I get surprised by the things he suggests
to me. That wav the initial idea starts growing and becomes something

You recently collaborated with Rammstein. What was that like, and
are you a fan? What kind of music do you like, and what are some of
your favorite bands?

It was a really good experience. They are true professionals that work in
favour of the image. I love the way they work. I do like the music they
make, but not for all the time. I don't have concrete musical preferences;
instead, I choose music depending on the moment, and there is a type of

music for every moment. I only know that I dont like the ultracommerc

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What is the creative process like when you do advertising campaigns,
and is that process different from your magazine work? Does the

life, or do they stand back and let you develop the ideas?

There is a bit of everything. When they give me freedom, the work and
the will to do it are multiplied by a hundred. When they don't give me the

option 1 can only be a good professional technically, which 1 hnd difficult.
When they don't give me the option and act like they're trying to pull
chestnuts out of the fire of a truly horrible concept, I go insane!

INTERVIEW Nadya Le^
TRANSLATION Morgana

ART DIRECTOR Eric
POST- PRODUCTION

ART DIRECTOR Eric Dover and Eugenio Recuenco
PHOTOGRAPHER ASSISTANT German Arbos and Pedro Galan

STYLIST Alberto Murtra

HAIR STILYST Daniel Martin

MAKEUP ARTIST Lewis Amarante

POST-PRODUCTION Paz Otero

POST-PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Cristina Duran

ART DIRECTOR Eric Dover and Eugenio Recuenco
PHOTOGRAPHER ASSISTANT German Arbos and Pedro Galan

STYLIST Alberto Murtra

HAIRSTYLIST Daniel Martin

MAKEUP ARTIST Lewis Amarante

POST-PRODUCTION Paz Otero

POST PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Cristina Duran

COILHOUSE

ART DIRECTOR Eugenio Recuenco PHOTOGRAPHER ASSISTANT German Arbos, Daniel Torres and Pedro Galan STYLIST Benat Yanci HAIR AND MAKEUP ARTIST Moncho Moreno
POST-PRODUCTION Paz Otero

ART DIRECTOR Eric Dover
PHOTOGRAPHER ASSISTANT German Arbos and Pedro Galan

STYLIST Macarena Nunez

HAIR AND MAKEUP ARTIST Eva Villar

POST-PRODUCTION Paz Otero

POST-PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Cristina Duran

COILHOUSE

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Joslin seeks out and puts to use those bright odds and
ends that might catch one's eye in a box full of orphaned
fixtures, or glinting up from the sidewalk. While each
piece she employs in her eerie animal reliquary is
delicately beautiful, it is also the detritus of human
engineering and design: old brass buttons and gold
braid, glass beads, clockwork cogs and velvet ribbon.
Such items are reminiscent of the whimsical technology
of a century past, one's grandparents' house, the dark
interiors of old fashioned movie theatres - and as such
they have an intriguing, wistful quality. In other words,
Joslin collects the things that all of us secretly want to,
the shiny pieces that we might comb through, handle and
admire, but ultimately force ourselves to put down; what
would we do with such things?

From the Lisa Sette Gallery Newsletter

A glossy new book featuring Joslin 's work, Strange Nature, has just been released.
It can be purchased at www.psstudios.com, or through the Lisa Sette Gallery.

In an era of plasticity, stale repetition and mass production, we crave
character and distinction in art. We're longing for fresh eyes to show us
the way out of this maze of static minimalism, creators who respect the
value of good, old-fashioned craftsmanship. Perhaps that's why cultivated
skill sets and traditional techniques have finally regained relevance in the
art world after decades of abstraction. No one's work exemplifies this sea
change better than that of Jessica Joslin, a sculptor living in Chicago with
her commensurately brilliant husband, the painter Jared Joslin. She's as
decisive as she is dreamy, and her exquisite one-of-a-kind creatures —
ranging in height from 1 inch to nearly 6 feet tall — are the perfect
talismans to ward off modern doldrums.

First off, where are you right now? Your home? Your workshop? Given
yours and Jared's aesthetic, the Joslin environs must be marvelous.
Will you please describe your wunderkammer world?

JESSICA JOSLIN Both are one and the same. From where I'm sitting,
I can see some of our flash art collection (c. 1900-1940). Many of them
are very early, attributed to George Burchett. Jared found those, bound
together in a small leather book, in a tiny town South of Chicago. They
have incredible line work — very fine. They remind me of the natural
history illustrations of Albertus Seba in the density of detail. I can also see
two Bellmer etchings from Madame Edwarda series, a Ray Caesar print
and a Camille Rose Garcia painting. There is a carnival-prize monkey in a
red top hat hanging from a tack edged shelf. On the shelf is a mummified
toad (found by Jared's dad) climbing up the shoulder of a ceramic lady.
Above that is the tin noisemaker collection. There's a tramp-art Popsicle
stick lamp on the table and an anatomical model of an ear and a tooth.

In the next room is an Irina Ionesco photograph with a deer skull above
it. At the moment, there's a huge candy cane hanging off its antlers. That
room also has several pieces of Victorian bird taxidermy and a self-portrait
painting of Jared as a fin de siecle clown holding a small hairless dog. There
is also another of Jared's paintings, a woman reclining on velvet pillows
with a monkey peering over her shoulder and a cabinet photograph/
drawing by Rick Hards. Opposite the deer skull is a needlepoint
sampler-esque piece by Tim Howe, made of children's blocks
that spell out Eat Your ]

Where oh where did the idea to create this ever-expanding bestiary
come from? Can you trace the concept's origins back to a specific point
in time?

There was a specific piece, Marco, 1992. He was the first of the beasts.
There was a steady progression up until that point though. I started off as a
photographer. By the time I hit art school, I was making photos of mixed
media constructions, which integrated natural and man-made elements. In
part, what started me off on that path was a package that my Dad sent. It
was filled with objects that we'd collected when I was little, seedpods and
shells and bones. I used those, combined with objects that I'd collected on
my own, while wandering around the alleyways of the lower east side of
New York. By the time I transferred to Chicago Art Institute, the sculptures
that I was making for my photos had become increasingly complex and
photographing them had started to seem secondary. Right around then,
my apartment got robbed two nights in a row. Photo equipment — all
gone. I took this as a signpost and changed majors, using the insurance
money to buy some hand tools and a drill press. That's when I got started
in earnest.

I was also collecting old typewriters, adding machines and such from the
flea markets and dismantling them. The precision of those bolts is just
amazing — they are so tightly machined. One day, I found a bag of
Victorian millinery supplies — gorgeous black bird wings, head and tail,
mounted on delicate thread wrapped wires. When I brought it back to my
studio, I knew that I had to make a body for those parts!

You're a self-described "intrigued autodidact" with a solid background
in biology and anatomy. How did you go about attaining your
knowledge of the inner workings of vertebrate life? Zoos? Museums?
Particular books? Home dissections?

«fc t

Jared's and I share a studio, as we have for the past 15 years
or so. His easel is right behind me, which makes him a very
brave man, since little bits of metal are always flying over
into his area. At the moment, he's working on a painting
of the two of us, me in a gown, he with a falcon on his
arm. There are several new oil paintings leaning around
the room including a 20's chanteuse and a portrait of
Anita Berber. He has a row of Irving Klaw photos above
his desk, several of Bettie Page. His paintbrushes are in
a clown-faced teapot.

My corner of the studio is lined with rows and rows

of tiny drawers, labeled with things like: mouse bones,

fish scales, universal joints, miniature brass bolts, watch

chains, brass couplings... Larger objects are in wooden

boxes on a shelf. Bones are sorted by type (leg bones,

skulls, etc.). Metal parts are sorted by shape and/or type

(rods, balls, musical instrument parts, drawer pulls, etc.) I

also have boxes of things like antique vestment trims, opera

gloves and fur collars. At the moment, I'm working towards a

show at Lisa Sette Gallery, so my creatures are everywhere! Canto

Silva are above my work desk. Otto, a monkey that I made for Jared

for our ioth anniversary, is on a shelf nearby. Helmut is peering out of

the window at the snowy Chicago day. There are a handful of newly-made

creatures clustered in an ornate wood shelf. At the moment, I'm working on a

small brass bat with kid leather wings and a monkey swinging from a tree branch

1*2

COILHOUSE

CERISE 8"x 6"x 11", 2007. Antique hardware, brass, bone, musical intrument parts, glove leather, cast pewter, glass eyes

A bit of all of the above! When I was little, I planned to become a biologist.
When the non-nerds were going to summer camp, I spent my summers at
the Acadia Institute of Oceanography, grooming myself my planned career
path: going to MIT and then working at the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution. I was about 9 or 10. The average age for the other kids was
about 18 or so (it was considered something impressive to put on a college
application). Anyway, it was amazing. I went there for several summers.
We collected specimens, did core samples and dredged the bottom
of the Atlantic, pulling up strange and beautiful fish with seaweed-like
protrusions. We went deep-sea fishing and I caught a shark. We later
realized that it was pregnant, and gave it an impromptu C-section. We
kept the baby sharks (complete with dangling yolk sac placentas) in a tank
in the lab until they could be released. This was in Maine, and I loved
that there were more rocky cliffs than beaches (I've never been fond of the
beach, except in wintertime). I'd walk along the mist coccooned craggy
cliffs, which looked like something from Hitchcock's Rebecca, daydreaming
about the past and the future.

From a very young age, I was unusually obsessed with the Natural History
Museums at Harvard. I was always begging my Dad to bring us there . . .
again and again. I was utterly enraptured by the taxidermied animals and
the incredible collection of Victorian articulated skeletons. It's odd, but
somehow I only recently realized that, in part, my fascination had to do
with being very near-sighted. I didn't realize that I needed glasses until I
was almost 16. I could only see clearly a few feet away. When people said
that they saw a bird in flight, I just saw a blurry smudge. To me, it was an
intellectual connection ... I knew of them from books and museums. I got
very good at recognizing shapes and movements. It didn't occur to me that
other people could see the bird clearly. The relevant part, in context of my
work, is that the only wild animals that I saw . . . for years really, were either
taxidermied or in pictures . . . that is the way that I fell in love with the
animal kingdom. I've spent many years living in books and museums.

One of the art schools that I went to is the School of the Art Institute of
Chicago. One of the main buildings is made of mirrored glass and there
is a large fountain in front of it. All species of birds would end up in the
pond, having crashed into the glass windows. I would wade in, collect the
dead birds, and use them to practice taxidermy, which I learned from old
manuals from the library. (Incidentally, that was how I met Jared. One
day he said hello and we started talking about the birds floating in the
fountain. We quickly realized that we both had freezers full of dead birds,
so I offered to give him taxidermy lessons. The rest is history.) Anyway,
I learned a great deal about anatomy from doing those bird dissections
and from preparing their skins for mounting. I also spent a bit of time at
the Field Museum of Natural History, repairing the dinosaur bones and
sculpting replacements for missing parts. They have the most amazing
collections, many of them behind the scenes. They had rows upon rows
of drawers filled with specimens and huge tanks of dermestid beetles for
preparing skeletons. Once, Jared saw a huge pair of swans in the tanks. I
always wished that I could have seen that.

I think that building prototypes has probably been the most useful in
terms of techniques. It requires a level of discipline and precision that
agrees with me. If you are building a working prototype (whether of a
toy or a machine) it has a specific function to accomplish, within a set of
rigid parameters. If the parts don't fit, it won't work. It's common to be
working within .010 of an inch accuracy, the thickness of a sheet of paper.
Doing that work taught me how to think in terms of engineering with
regard to my sculptures. It ultimately made it possible to create pieces, in a
wide range of scale, that are freestanding and still hold true to my favored
materials and aesthetic. In earlier works, they often have a very rigid pose.
That is partly because I enjoy that particular quality of some taxidermy, its
unnatural symmetry. It was also because I hadn't yet adapted the methods
to make the sculptures balance properly in an unusual pose. My pieces
are assembled using mechanical connections, so parts are generally drilled,
tapped and threaded. Each angle has to be figured out. If a single hole is
off, one of the feet might not touch the ground, or it would be lopsided.
There is a lot of engineering (and finesse) that goes into making them seem
natural and effortless, as if they were meant to be.

How has working with organic materials like bone, skin and taxidermy
affected your relationships with living animals, if at all?

I often think about their structure as I'm looking at them. I'll be sitting,
cuddled up with a friend's dog, and I'll find myself thinking about where
its bones are, relative to its position . . . looking at the angles that the limbs
form. Those angles are so critical for my work. If the pose isn't fluid, it
doesn't have the feeling of being about to spring to life. Because of the type
of work that I make, the animals that I meet are muses to me.

Do you always know the form a creature is going to take when you
set to work on a new project? Are they born spontaneously from
materials you have lying around, inspired by a specific artifact, or do
you sometimes gather parts together with a preordained vision? I have
a feeling it depends on the beastie. . .

Yes, it does depend on the creature. They all seem to follow their own path.
Sometimes I know exactly what I'm going to make (but not necessarily
the specifics). Sometimes I'll set out to make a bird and it turns into a cat
along the way! The ones that are more specific are often things that I've
had tucked away in the back of my mind, until I come up with a solution
to a certain riddle. That riddle might be solved by a new technique that
I've learned or a part that I find. For example, I'm making a bat at the
moment. I've thought of making one for a long time. I've even collected
various weights of black kid leather to use for the wings. The riddle for
that piece was: how do I make the bone structure of the wings? It has to be
very delicate, as bat wing bones are very fine, but also structurally sound.
Of course, it needs to be more than just functional from an engineering
standpoint, it's also decorative and it needs to be fluidly integrated with
the leather. The discovery that got the bat off the backburner was a set of
brass dollhouse curtain rods with tiny turned brass finials on the ends. The
finals are solid brass, so there is enough mass to hold a bolt hole. I build the
wings from those and took it from there.

You use a variety of complex techniques to mount this detailed and
multi-faceted work. When and where did you learn all these skills?
What challenges do you regularly face? Any particularly odd or
interesting "tricks" you've learned over the years?

I've learned a lot of skills through my professional work. I've also developed
certain specialist techniques over the years, through trial and error. For
example, it took me forever to figure out how to make an eyelid just so.
I use kid leather from antique opera gloves to construct the surround for
the glass taxidermy eyes. As in painting, achieving a particular expression
is a very finicky process. Sometimes it takes several tries to get the gaze to
be naturalistic. I've also spent many years working in shops: model shops,
rapid prototyping shops, carpentry shops, sculpture & exhibit houses . . .
for each, there is a particular skill set that I've had to master; in each case,
I've found elements that translate back to how I make my own work.

Sometimes, with a new piece, I'll start off with one particular object and
a general sense of scale and species. I often begin with the pelvis, since
that's the center of gravity, or with the feet, since they often have the most
components and set the scale of the piece (for example, a single one of
Ludwig's feet is about made up of about 30 different parts) . If I come up
with a toe configuration that I love, for an entirely different species than
I'd planned on, sometimes I'll just shift direction. I usually work on several
pieces simultaneously, that way I can keep things moving along, when I
have to set one aside to find a particular part. Sometimes it can take a
long time to find the perfect piece of 19TH century brass vestment trim,
or a vase with just the right size and contour. The bodies of my flamingos,
Candido & Caprice, were made from an old brass vase and it took me
several attempts to find one that, when cut into sections, formed the right
shape. As I go along, they tell me what they need. . .

COILHOUSE

EMCEE Jared Joslin, 2008, Acrylic on canvas

Your creatures are imbued with so much life and personality. Where
do their wonderful names come from? Is it ever difficult to part with
them?

Thank you! It's always hard to part with them, but I do realize (or I keep
telling myself to realize!) that I have to make room for the next ones.
They would completely take over if I hoarded them. I do have a few that
are staying with me. When I get things back from the gallery, I'm secretly
thrilled that they didn't sell, since I have an excuse to keep them for
myself.

The names I collect, just like I do my other parts. When I find a beautiful
name, I write it in a special book. Whenever I finish a piece, I bring out the
book and decide what suits it best. My Mom is heavily into genealogy, so
sometimes she'll send me lists of names from the family tree. Some of them
are from books that I've read or from a big old biographical dictionary.

These pieces more readily inspire comparison to film, natural history,
literature, architecture, fashion, or even music than to other mixed
media art/sculpture. Perhaps because no one with knowledge of your
work could mistake any given piece for something other than a Jessica
Joslin original. What are some of the more interesting reactions/
comparisons your decidedly singular vision has prompted, and whose
work has been especially inspiring to you?

Thank you. That is most lovely of you to say so! Hmmmm ... honestly, I
get quite a few letters from people who are excited to have found my work

and say that it's "just like " (fill in the blank with anything that has

bones in it). Some of the most flattering comparisons are Frederic Ruysch,
Jan Svankmajer, The Brothers Quay, Pierre Jaquet-Droz's automata, Lee
Bontecou, Guiseppe Arcimbaldo, Jeunet's City of Lost Children, Walton
Ford...

I think that in a broad sense, I look at art that is very different from mine
for inspiration. I take niblets of things from all over the place. I'm just as
likely to use a detail from a couture gown as a bondage harness. I often look
at the images of Albertus Seba, Jaap Best and Eadweard Muybridge when
deciding what to make and my old Funk & Wagnalls' wildlife encyclopedias
are always at my fingertips. I have appropriated some bits from works by
Helmut Newton (Helmut, 2005 was named after the late great man. The
missing foot, replaced by a wheel, is a secret nod to one of my favorite
series by him, of a woman wearing fetish heels in a wheelchair) . I also love
the lush, stylized look of photographers like Eugenio Recuenco, Erwin
Olaf, and Pierre et Gilles. Images and anecdotes of Barnum's American
Museum (1841 to 1865) have always set off many and varied sparks.

Lee Bontecou's work really caught me off guard when I first saw it. I don't
know how to explain this without sounding presumptuous, but when I
saw her work, it almost felt as if I were seeing something that I had made
myself in another life or another dimension. Oh, that sounds so corny. It
was very powerful experience, though. I was skulking about the corners,
trying to keep people from seeing my tears. Of course, the other Joslin
artists, Jared as well as his brother Russell — a brilliant photographer —
are a constant inspiration.

You and Jared are both very driven and prolific. How has his vision
affected yours, and vice versa?

Having a partner-in-crime while navigating the crazy life of an artist has
been invaluable! Since we've known each other since art school, there is a
shared frame of reference, both visually and experientially. We can speak
in shorthand to each other, whether it's about prior works, circus freaks,
contemporary art, exotic animal species, or Wiemar Berlin. We have a
constant, ongoing dialogue about what each of us is making and thinking
about. I don't think that either of us has made a piece, in all the time that
we've known each other, without getting feedback from the other along
the way.

COILHOUSE

The circus has been an important influence for both of us through the
years. When we first met, we always went to the circus when it came to
town. We still make frequent trips to The Circus World Museum in Baraboo,
Wisconsin, to look at their incredible archives of historical images and
carny paraphernalia. I might find a delicious detail from a circus wagon
or animal costume that I'll incorporate, and he may discover a reference
photo of a specific performer. It's an endless source of inspiration. Jared's
Dietrich-esque portrait of me, Trainer, incorporates details from the
museum's collection of beautiful antique circus wagons. In Jared's Circus
Self-Portrait, the types of trim on his jacket are modeled after the type of
antique vestment trims that I use, and the dog's collar is one that I'd love to
incorporate into one of my sculptures, if only it existed! From time to time,
my antique gloves or clothing will be recruited for reference in a painting.
He has also used me as a model/muse for his paintings quite a few times
and often flattered me by saying that I am an amazing painter (although
I've never painted) because of my sharp eye for proportion and anatomy.
He more than returns the favor by being brilliantly knowledgeable about
animals, their characteristics and poses. He's suggested quite a few things
that I'd love to take all the credit for! Sometimes, he'll wander over to look
at what I'm doing and suggest something that I would never have thought
of . . . for example, Odette started off as a tall shore bird. When Jared saw
the body section lying on my desk, he thought that it was meant to be
positioned in reverse from what I had planned. When I looked at it upside
down, I liked the form even better, and ultimately turned it into a kiwi.

There are those who make art because they find it enjoyable or
challenging, but most truly visionary artists seem to need to create to
live a healthy life ... it's as important to them as breathing and sleeping.

it THERE IS A LOT OF

ENGINEERING AND

FINESSE THAT GOES

INTO MAKING THEM

SEEM NATURAL AND

EFFORTLESS, AS IF THEY

WERE MEANT TO BE 5

It seems likely that you are in the latter category. If so, was there ever
a pivotal moment in your youth (or later, if that's the case) when you
realized that you needed to be an artist?

Yes, it was towards the beginning of high school. I took a photography
class and it swept me off my feet. Science was my first great love, but art
takes no prisoners! I never stood a chance. I think that what appealed to
me most about the arts, photography in particular, was that it gave me the
opportunity to be involved in scenarios that would never happen otherwise.
I was 14, so I did the typical arty types of photo shoots ... a person in a
milk bath or covered with powder or in a funhouse mirror. I loved having
an excuse to ask people to do these things . . . and I loved the magic of
making the first contact prints and seeing what I had captured. I spent
most of high school in the darkroom, learning techniques and honing my
skills. I hardly saw the sun for all the years! I don't know if I could pinpoint
exactly what it is that still keeps me coming back for more, but I know that
if I don't work on art for awhile, I'm as twitchy and agitated as an addict
needing a fix. I like the way that being an artist gives everything a subtext.
I feel like I always have a secret agenda. It makes me take risks and put
myself into situations that I otherwise wouldn't. It gives me the confidence
to throw myself into situations that I might not otherwise tackle. I love the
challenge of learning new skills and discovering ways of integrating them
into my personal work.

Do you have any interest in branching out into other mediums, for
instance stop-motion animation, film, fashion or puppetry? Who
would be your "dream collaborators"?

Funny that you ask, I was just thinking about this yesterdayl Yes, I am
curious about dabbling in stop motion animation when the time is right.

CANDIDO & CAPRICE 40" x 16" x 20" (measurements are variable), 2005.

Brass, snakeskin, vestment trim, velvet, antique opera glove leather, turtle shell, cast and painted plastic, glass eyes

COILHOUSE

C0ILHOUSE

LUCAl6"x8"x22", 2007. Antique hardware, brass, bone leather, glass eyes

EGON 17"x8"x9", 2008 Antique hardware and findings, brass, bone, Leather, steel, cast/painted plastic, glass eyes

C01LHOUSE

COILHOUSE

HELMUT 36"x12"x40", 2005. Bone, brass, ball finials, leather, brass horn, velvet, glass eyes

COILHOUSE

4 >\

For my first experiments, I think that I may go very retro tech and
make a zoetrope or a little flip-book. I've always loved the flip-
books of Eadweard Muybridge images and I think they would
serve as a good model for me. I like the quiet interaction of those
formats. Also, the way that I construct my work would make it
very well-suited to these media. I would need to design pieces
specifically for that purpose. By the time my sculptures are
finished, most of the movements are fixed permanently, so that
they can be freestanding. It would be interesting to work with
someone who has a solid background technically, and of course
they would need to have an aesthetic that is compatible. I do get
a fair amount of inquiries from animators who would like to
use my work, but my feeling is that I would like it to be a true
collaboration, and I'm waiting for someone who would really
bring something interesting to the table . . . not just provide
the equipment.

If you were to host a lavish dinner party and could invite
any 6 guests (living or dead), who would you invite?

Jared, Hans Bellmer, Lee Bontecou, David Lynch, Tom
Waits, Matthew Barney.

This last question is a bit morbid, but quite relevant

given the nature of your work. Is there a specific manner

in which you would prefer your mortal remains to be

preserved? (Preferably after expiring from extreme old

age, still with your wits and your family about you and

having lived an exceedingly full and magnificent life.)

Well that's a damn good question! Maybe for my last piece, I'll

commission someone to install parts that I've designed on my

own skeleton. That could be interesting, though a wee bit more

sensationalist and egomaniacal than is my tendency, ha. Honestly,

I haven't thought about it in much depth . . . more in a toss my ashes

somewhere pretty kind of way. There's something there though. I

wonder what kind of brass I would like to wear forever. . .

INTERVIEW Meredith Yayanos

LUDWIG 24"x10"x15", 2006. Antique hardware, brass, beads, standoffs, bone, velvet, glove leather, steel, glass eyes

versus

Bach loved to play games, and his favorite one was called "leading
astray." Every time Bach wanted to play this game, he had to put on a
disguise; legend has it that no other organist wanted to face off against
him, for fear of a shameful defeat. The rules of this musical challenge were
such: one organist would begin to play a fuge, then halt at a challenging
and unexpected place. The opponent, in turn, would have to take up the
same fuge without skipping a beat. With each round, both organists
would add complexity to the piece until one of them dropped the ball.
Bach's departure from this world in 1750 may have well been the ultimate
challenge of leading astray to all those who followed; the composer left
behind the Kunst der Fuge, a series of 12 fuges and 2 canons that remained
mysteriously unfinished at the time of his death. Much debate surrounds
Bach's reasons for leaving the piece unfinished, but many scholars believe
that Bach filled the manuscrupt with hidden clues suggesting that the
Fuge's abrupt ending may have been open challenge for his successors to
come up with a worthy conclusion. In May 2008, Laibach rose to the
challenge by releasing the album Laibachkunstderfuge, a reinterpreted
and completed version of the Bach original. Prior its
release, the music on this new album had been
performed just once, on June 1, 2006, in a mystifying
concert titled "Konzert fuer das Kreuzschach und
vier Schachspieler" (translating roughly to "concert
for four-player chess and four chess players") in
Bach's hometown of Leipzig during a music festival
dedicated to his works. + Both Laibach and Bach
have been known to leave
coded messages in their
work. Much as Laibach has
incorporated its symbol, an
ominous symmetrical cross,
into every album cover
since its inception (yes,
there's even one on the
cover of Volk), Bach too
embedded his name many
times into the Fuge. He
accomplished this by
employing gematria, an
ancient numerological

method in which numbers
are used to replace letters in

order to derive a word's "revealed meaning." Bach's
stamp is present everywhere; the tone sequence
B-A-C-H frequently appears as the Fuge's subject,
while Bach's number, 14 (B + A + C + H, or 2 + 1 +
3 + 8), appears under various guises on many
different occasions, from the musical structure to
the Fuge's title, right down to the very last bar in
Contrapunctus 14, at which point the music cuts off
abruptly at Bar 239. As Bach scholar Indra Hughes observes in his thesis
Accident or Design, it is not by chance that the notes halt at that particular
bar, for 2 + 3 + 9 = 14. If Bach implanted secrets within his Fuge, what
secrets does Laibach mix into its own interpretation? Hanno Reichel
attempts to answer this question and many others in the following analysis
of both the musical and performative aspects of Laibachkunstderfuge,
Laibach's answer to Bach's post-mortal leading-astray challenge. I. B-A-
C-H. For the last 25 years, the production of cover versions (or "copies
without originals'V'new originals" - Laibach), has become a standard
element of Laibachkunst and NSK. Nevertheless, due to the fact that in
this case we are not dealing with just a certain pop song or a single piece
of visual art taken out of its original context, but with one of the most
controversial classical masterpieces of its time and the full adaptation of
that whole piece by Laibach, what might be the underlying meaning and
hidden reverse of the Fuge in a Laibach-context? + Dating back to the
time period of 1737 to 1750, the original Kunst der Fuge is today seen as
Bach's musical opus ultimum and most genius example for the musical
compositions of German baroque. Besides that, the piece holds a lot of

details that - since its first publication - inspired lots of contradictory

interpretations, speculations and mystifications. Speaking of the

music itself, Kunst der Fuge seems to be most of all a strictly theoretical

and technical piece. Up to now, it is not even clear whether Bach had ever

intended it to be performed, or if it was created as a purely conceptual and

tutorial piece which was not be played, but to be read ("Augenmusik"). In

general, the piece develops on the basis of an underlying standard theme

(Contrapunctus 1) and the follow-up of most different parts that

apprehend this theme again and again in complex ways of cross-changing,

reflecting and rescaling the original pattern. The fact that, due to that

musical structure, lots of different numbers/codes could be read out of the

written piece in a mathematical/cryptographic way and parts of it could

be played either in the way they were written or as well vice-versa without

changing the melodic flow has up to now been the source of thousands of

conspiracy theories. Those were additionally strengthened by certain

suppositions that see Bach as a possible freemason/illuminati and the fact

that he died before the Fuge was finished, leaving the piece open-ended

and thus free to visionary speculations about its

complete meaning and sense. The most irritating of

these coded references in the Fuge is definitely the

fact that parts of the underlying theme are based on

the tone-sequence B-A-C-H, thus implementing an

invisible, immanent, incorruptible and timeless

signature of the composer within his piece of art. +

Maybe Laibach's actual approach to the Fuge is to be

seen as an ode to Bach's

ingenious constructive and

contextualizing ability: not

^ks. only to create a piece of art

^^Qi\ that (behind its visible

^^^U facade) contents a hidden

reverse, but to construct a
piece of art that ultimately
consists of nothing else but
its underlying references
and is held together
exclusively by its own
hidden reverse only.
Needless to say that the
basic principle of the Fuge
(variety only as the result of
reprising/recontextualizing from a certain basic
origin) is in strict accordance with Laibach's self-
restriction to their basic concept in their 10 items of
the covenant. Another hint for a slight
"Seelenverwandschaft" between Laibach and Bach
concerning the Fuge might be found in Bach's strict
and theoretical approach to complex contrapunctual
compositions (reaching its final level of perfectionism
in the Fuge); this approach was, soon after Bach's death already and later,
especially in German totalitarism between 1933 and 1945, hailed as a form
of authoritarian art and even mythologized as a national art-symbol for
"German order." Thus, Laibach occupation with Bach isn't that far away
from their occupation with the eastern avantgardists, concerning the
corruption of their artworks by certain systems and ideologies.
II. Kraft-B-A-C-H. The doors of Werk 11 opened at 2o:ooh, and the
venue turned out to be an abandoned factory hall which is now used as a
concert venue but still holding its industrial atmosphere with its brick
walls, steel columns and even the former machine-crane still in place on
its tracks below the ceilings high above the audience. Speaking of the
audience, the occasion of the Bachfest and the forthcoming Wave-Gotik-
Treffen in Leipzig had brought together a bunch of the most different
people for the concert in Werk 11, from the obligatory Laibach fans of
gothics/dark-wavers to dressed-up classic fans who occasionally come to
Leipzig for the Bachfest. + The concert started at around 2o:45H, revealing
already with its first introductory sounds and the stage setting that besides
J.S. Bach, Laibach would use the opportunity to pay tribute also to

TEXT Hanno Reichel
INTRODUCTION Nadya Lev

another one of their greatest influences: Kraftwerk. To the beginning
techno/electro sounds of Laibach's adaptation of the Fuge, vier Personen
entered the stage one by one and put up behind four minimalist consoles
of laptops each bearing a clef and Laibach-symbol. The backdrop of the
stage featured three large screens and the whole centre part of stage was
occupied by a massive white table bearing the Kreuzschach board and four
old-fashioned wooden chairs. Laibach were uniformed in kinds of their
traditionalist alpinist/hunter's costumes with breeches, Laibach-armbands
and baroquian wigs making them ironically resemble the pictures of J.S.
Bach and his contemporaries. + The first approximately 15 minutes of the
concert were quite kraftwerkian with smooth minimalist instrumental
techno/electro-sounds and Laibach acting stoically and totally unmoving
behind their consoles. A timeless synthesis of the bachian/contrapunctual
order of the late i6th century with the later German stereotypes staged by
Kraftwerk during the last days of the millennium? III. Lai-B-A-C-H.
After this first introductory part, the group left the consoles and took
place leisurely around the table which — by the way — bore on its four sides
the inscriptions for the cryptic names Eber
Salinger Keller Dachauer, paying tribute to the
ancient and mystifying times from the beginning of
Laibachkunst. Contrasting their serious and totally
emotionless appearance before, the four Schauspieler
here acted with obvious sponginess, hanging around
the table, drinking, talking, laughing, smoking and
last but not least playing the cryptic game of
Kreuzschach. The top of
the table was transmitted
live from a camcorder
mounted high above the
table to the centre screen
on the backdrop so that the
audience could follow every
single move of the ongoing
match, which lasted for
about one hour to the
continuing ambient and
industrial sounds of the
electronic Fuge. Amplifying
the musical impression, the
remaining two displays on
the left and right showed

videoart-clips with partly typical Laibachian
aesthetic (Malevich crosses, NSK passports, engines,
flames, etc.) and other material (general symbolism
of transport, energy, music, nature, etc.). The music
itself remained a mixture of partly melodic, partly
abstract electronic sound structures with intense
basses and sometimes aggressive heights. Besides
some seconds of a computerized distorted voice
repeating the word "Lai-bach" for a few seconds (most probably as a more
open reference to the underlying B-A-C-H-sequence as a reference to the
author/composer in the original Fuge) the whole concert featured no
lyrics at all. + The reaction of the audience to the resulting impression was
of two kinds; while most of the audience seemed to comprehend what was
going on not as a concert in the classic sense, but more as some kind of
modern art installation, some others took it as a massive transgression,
having paid for what was supposed to be a live concert and now witnessing
some decadent artists hanging lazily around a table to the sounds of dance
music from tape. Some attending punks were displeased enough to use
some seconds of only very low sound to scan the typical "Lai-bach! Lai-
bach!" and "Gebt mir ein Leitbild!" choirs and caused at least a small
reaction from Dejan Knez, looking up irritated from his place at the table
to the audience, standing up for a few seconds and then shyly smiling and
waving towards that shouting group as if to say "Yes, this is Laibach. We
are here. Don't panic." + The last approximately 15 minutes of the
"concert" saw the return of the group to the consoles after having finished
their Kreuzschach-match and once again performing at the edge of stage

in a kraftwerkian way. With the final sounds fading out, Laibach were
dismissed by the audience with warm applause even though it could be
felt that large parts of the audience were at least puzzled and not absolutely
sure about what they had seen and heard. IV. B-etr-A-C-H-tungen
(=considerations). Speaking of what Diekunstderfuge could mean in
a Laibach/NSK-context, the possibilities of interpretations and views are
— due to the already unending amount of myths and philosophical aspects
linked to the original Fuge itself - indefinite. In fact, there are slight
parallels between contemporary views on the original Fuge and the actual
reception of Laibachkunst; in the same way, in which — among others —
Adorno praised Bach as more than just an avantgardist but as an eternally
unattainable genius standing outside of any time-related interpretation,
Laibach follow the concept of not being dependant on time, but being
time themselves ("WAT") and thus remain zeitlos while everything else is
tot ("Das Spiel ist aus"). Moreover, today's critics see the Fuge as a
stylistically most ambivalent piece, uniting the avantgardistic theoretical
approach of the structure itself with Bach's stile antico which was already
in its time absolutely out of date and considered
"anachronistic" or even "barbarian." And isn't that
the very same ambivalence as in Laibach's
monumental retro-avantgarde? + Thus, have these
one and a half hours of Diekunstderfuge been
nothing more than a bow of Laibach to their
predecessors and influences J.S. Bach and Kraftwerk?
Maybe the answer to that question can be found
more in the stage-
performance and its relation
to the Fuge than only in the
music itself. So, what could
be heard and seen on stage
on the symbolic level? +
The audience witnessed
four Schauspieler who,
hanging around leisurely
and relaxed around a table,
gave themselves the
impression of acting on the
Kreuzschach, making

decisions, considering

tactics, planning moves,
shifting figures and
discussing their efforts. So, weren't these Schauspieler
acting symbolically as actual leaders trying to
demonstrate their role as the controllers of their
dominion? And couldn't the audience witness the
obvious ridiculousness of these efforts with the
alleged permanent activity on the Kreuzschach while
the real life happens left and right from this group of
leaders (symbolized by the material shown on the
displays, i.e. references to the fields of war, culture, energy and nature)?
And wasn't it symptomatic that all this screened reality took place out of
view of the Schauspieler? And doesn't this permanent historical Schauspiel
of pseudo-important decisions, strategies (and ideologies?) that creates a
lot of background noise but never has any of the desired influences on
reality equal the structure of the original "Fuge" again, with its endless
variations of the same basis? If that is the case, the audience once again
played its role as the nation/mob perfectly as desired by Laibach; the
majority of people was either overwhelmed by the staging and did thus
not question the content or was incapable of understanding what went on
anyway. A small group of rebellious outcasts (the aforementioned group of
punks) dared to voice their discontent - most probably without any real
understanding as well - and gained the usual reaction; the "leaders" gave
a benevolent but arrogant wave and the security threw them out. + In
short: is Laibachkunstderfuge a simile showing a) the impotence of
past and present systems and leaders to forge the present (not to speak of
the future) in a post-political world and b) the fact that the masses are
either unwilling or incapable to change this situation?

Laibach's dressing style has drawn on uniform, hunter/alpinist gear,
national costume and religious attire. What inspires the way you dress?

LAI BACH We always wear combination of ready-made uniforms or we
construct them together with our diverse collaborators. We understand
uniform as a "universal form", a dress we can wear all the time, during the
day and night. That goes for the boots also. Uniform is not so much the
question of well-being or being well but the question of "being" itself and
our uniforms give us this very feeling. Taking off the uniform can be a fatal
act for a soldier. Look just what happened to Castro!

In 1983 you conducted your first TV interview. Your interviewer, Jure
Pengov, called on viewers put a stop to what he called your "dangerous,
horrifying ideas." As a result, Laibach was banned. You still managed
to become Slovenia's best-known group, and Pengov became one of
Slovenia's top jounalists. Have you had any run-ins with him since?
Yes, we met once after 1983 and it was publicly. He handed over to us a
local media award for "extraordinary life achievement" and we bestowed
upon him an order of a Laibach knighthood. Thus he has become officially
recognized as a Laibach apostle.

Have you found that men and women react to Laibach differently?

That is logical, because Laibach reacts to men and women differently.
Although in principle we treat them all the same.

Is it true that some members of Laibach appear in Full Metal Jacket

Yes, it is true; we were running up and down the set, in uniforms, together
with other soldiers. This was in the early 80' s when we were living for a
while in London, and our friends from [industrial music group] Last Few
Days invited us to join them as extras in Full Metal Jacket. It was a very
interesting militarist experience.

You've said before that the Internet gives only the illusion of personal
freedom. With its growing abundance of free information sources,
alternative news perspectives and self-publishing/self-promotion tools
for anyone that needs them, do you still feel that this is true?

Media freedom is at its best still only "freedom of the media" and not
Freedom by definition. The truth is that real freedom is not an issue anymore
because the concept of freedom has already become incomprehensible:
civilization has come to the point where we are now fighting only for a

more or less convincing idea of a virtual freedom and not for Freedom
per se. Internet - like many other useful technological tools - successfully
expands this feeling of (personal) freedom, but at the same time it clearly
enslaves its users, leading them away from more important issues of life
and death.

Has the NSK State ever denied or revoked citizenship for any reason?

No, not that we are aware of. We accept every soul into our flock.

Laibach sometimes gets together to Kreuzschach, i.e. four-player chess.
How does this work? Do players form alliances, or is everyone out for
himself? What are some possible strategies for winning?

Chess for four is first of all a music instrument — it helps us to meditate
about music, art, mathematics, etc. where there is no win or lose situation.
We play together - all for one and one for all. Sometimes we practice
politics and in such situations everybody is out for himself, playing against
the others, forming temporary coalitions, political axes and alliances, until
we don't erase each other entirely.

It seems like today's pop stars are all interchangeable. There are no
strong personalities; no more Madonnas, no more Bowies in today's
formulaic mainstream. Why do you think that is?

There is music and there is music industry. Unfortunately music industry
has destroyed most of music and in consequence it has destroyed itself
as well. Musicians today are slaves of devastated music market and have
neither guts nor power to act against this fact. And besides - they have
nothing much to tell.

Laibach has a huge Russian following. They really like you over there.

Russians do consider Laibach almost as their own group because we are
historically coming from a Slavic and communist background and because
we remind them of their heroic times. This is of course a big honor for us,
but eventually we will have to disappoint them.

Your new press photos have a 1960s psychedelic vibe and lots of
conspiracy-theory symbolism. Are these meant to accompany your
previous album, Vblk, or are they hinting at some future project?

Let's say psychedelically conspiring about this and leave the explanation
for the future.

ILLUSTRATIONS Master Steerpike / Art. Lebedev
INTERVIEW Nadya Lev / Donald Campbell

Monsters Among Us !

Photorealistic detail, a sepia palette and Victorian garb
have all become elements of Travis Louie's signature
style. A timely decision to bow out of an illustration
career generated his rapid rise to the top of the pop-
surrealism genre. A brave and fruitful move, it brought
about countless exhibitions and press. He is a storyteller,
including bits of personal history with each painting of
three-eyed aristrocrats, dubious damsels and beastly soul

collectors.

's work invites the viewer into

past that wasn't, playful and full of mystery.

WQA

COILHOUSE

/'•■'

In your blog you muse about hiring an actor to portray you at art
openings. A grand idea - a work of art in itself! Are you interested in
the sort of notoriety the alternative art scene creates?

TRAVIS LOUIE So far, it's been fun. If I developed any notoriety at all in
this scene, I hope it's because my paintings have entertained or touched
a few of the viewers in a some positive way. I always thought that was
how the audience for any artist should develop, in an ideal world. About
notoriety, it can be good or bad. It depends on what you're noted for and
whether or not it amuses people or offends them. I dislike people who
shamelessly grab attention or project a false image, but it would be kind of
funny to hire an actor to portray me at my openings, especially if it were a
different actor every time.

What would your story be in this alternate universe?

I'd still be a painter. I'd still be a painter and every full moon, my paintings
would come to life. I'd leave special instructions with my patrons and
gallery contacts, cautioning them on how to handle the different characters
I created if they managed to escape their frames.

How often do you base your paintings on real people, friends?

Quite often, actually; my grandfather, my neighbor, my science teacher
from middle school, and my friend Angie Mason, have all had characters
modeled after them, in my paintings. I'll be painting Mike Leavitt at some
point - it's only fair, he created a sculpture of me for his Art Army.

What's your impression of the pop-surrealism scene as a whole?

It's tough to pin down where it's going. It has become difficult to define
because of the many different styles being shown in the galleries that
showcase this work. And as with other art movements, I think the collectors
who've invested in this artwork will decide for us who will be remembered
as being part of this thing 20 years from now. I was attracted to these
galleries because of artists like Mark Ryden and Todd Schorr. I consider

myself fortunate to be showing my work alongside artists like Chet Zar,
Amy Sol, Audrey Kawasaki, Dan Quintana, Ron English, Sas Christian,
Greg Craola Simkins, Shawn Barber, Lori Earley, etc.

Besides these little stories, have you considered writing longer pieces?

I have thought about it, but painting is more fun for me. Writing is part of
my process and part of my morning routine.

While we're on a literary note - what are some of your favorite books?

I loved Jules Verne and H. G.Wells as a child. I discovered H. P. Lovecraft
when I was in art school. I don't get to read much these days. The most
recent books I've read are The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z,
both by Max Brooks. Light reading, but entertaining.

Your paintings are executed in the style of formal portraits. You
mention this format being intrinsic to your work, the idea being
that these otherworldly creatures were captured in time by a fictional
photographer to reveal a small bit of their fictional history. Do you
think this formal portrait look is a phase in your work and you'll move
on from this theme in the future?

I'm sure I'll be moving on to other things, but I doubt I'll abandon this
phase altogether. I intend to paint some complete family portraits and
portraits of people and their pets. I do love genre scenes, I would like to
get back to paintings that look like movie stills (something I experimented
with 10 years ago).

You've mentioned not looking like the type of guy to paint your
characters. If you had to paint yourself as one of them, what would
you look like?

I would definitely have pointed ears, antennae, lots of facial hair and maybe
one eye. I might have a dueling scar to go with the extra facial hair. I'd also
wear a hat. I like to wear hats.

INTRODUCTION/INTERVIEW Zoetica Ebb

ROOTY Rooty, when provoked or set off in some way, could use his ability to control other peoples bodily functions to great hilarity or alarm.

CDILHOUSE

PALS On cold December day, Herbert and Lawrence lost a bet.

COILHOUSE

UNCLE SIX EYES Gordon six eyes Lived in his parents' basement until his six eyes became highly fashionable and his anger at the outside world had subsided to a level of
extreme indifference. By the time it was safe for him to emerge from the cellar and experience the outside world, his brothers and sisters had all grown up and married.
He now had many nieces and nephews, who loved their Uncle Six Eyes. They all marveled at his ability to move all six of his eyes in different directions at once. They
wished they had six eyes, instead of the boring, single eye they each had on their shiny, bald heads... just like their parents.

www.aisu

unique lU () 4, llollowii) Roud, London V HJL
iiiro@atsukokudo.cotn +44(0)20 7700 4631

Photo: Nadya Lev Modds: Li I ah & Jnv

HAT & WARDROBE Drew Bird ASSISTANT STYLIST Fifi MAKEUP ARTISTS Renee Saia I
MODELS Jaime Blakely & Reanna Rae Martinez

Debra Broberg HAIR STYLISTS Christine Choi & Madison Bond ASSISTANT Charles Hudson

HAT & WARDROBE Drew Bird
MAKEUP ARTIST Gabriel Perez
PHOTO ASSISTANT David Phillips

LOCATION Shot at HollywoodBandB.com
MODEL Liz Hyun

COILHOUSE

HAT & WARDROBE Drew Bird

NECKLACE Marisa Youlden

MAKEUP ARTIST Kaitrin Sones

MODEL Kaitrin Sones

HAT & WARDROBE Drew Bird MAKEUP ARTIST Gabriel Perez PHOTO ASSISTANT David Phillips LOCATION Shot at HollywoodBandB.com MODEL Jaime Blakely

ndy Julia

ON HIS FIRST SHOOT "I remember my first photo shoot perfectly. I was a 17-year-old teenager who'd just discovered love. I began my first roll in shooting my girlfriend
innocently. This first roll had a very hard light, supplied by a simple bedside lamp. Her skin was wrapped in a piece of black satin, and her legs hidden behind beautiful
stockings, she was wearing a black velvet men's "haut de forme" from the end of the 19th century ... our bed was surrounded by mirrors. We just made only one roll this day.
That roll changed my life forever."

ON HIS RECENT BOOK, LIBERTINE "I use subterfuges and elements from the past to explore the deeper the essence of my models, which are extracted from
the passing time to give me an image of their proper eternity ... maybe the image that they want to keep of themselves like the epitaphic portrait that somebody
would want to leave on a grave."

ON PROFESSIONAL MODELS VS. ALT MODELS Models from agencies are more "professional", but for me it's an abstract idea. It's just that a girl coming for a job
is more ready to give a part of her, because it's their job. Models who do it for pleasure are not the same, they are not formatted to give this, they have just their
own manner, like autodidactic persons ... so the result is not comparable. I can say that working with professional model is easier, because the agencies do a big
part of your job in selecting the girls for what they are... but those girls are like any other and it's this fact that I try to explore deeply"

ON WHICH HISTORICAL FIGURE HE WOULD PHOTOGRAPH "I would Like to see the young Countess of Castiglione, taking a bath in her "hotel particuLier" in Paris ... and Looking to the
flowing shadows outside at the window, that betray the concupiscence of her lost innocence, her skin still wet."

AMINAl15xl65cm, 2003- Oil on wood

C0ILHOUSE

SENZATITOLO 80x60cm, 2002. Mixed technique

SATURNALIA

Cult painter Saturno Butto portrays fetish alongside
religious ritual, painstakingly executed in oil by a
classically- trained hand. Here forceps and gags are
sacred, eating, masturbation and bondage are divine
ceremonies and provocative harlots are saints. Butto 's
use of fetish tools as religious objects and vice versa
moves beyond simple shock value; he elevates the themes
that classic religious painting deemed taboo, undressing
martyrs and placing pleasure on its rightful throne. Gold
and vermillion, royalty and blood, ecstasy and violence
converge here to build shrines to beauty, seduction and
power all the while demolishing the altars of dogma.

INTRODUCTION Zoetica Ebb

SICKGIRL VERA 47x66cm, 2007. Oil on wood

CONVERSAZIONE 187x125 cm, 2004. Oil on wood

SENZATITOLO 80x60cm, 2002. Mixed technique

COILHOUSE

CRISTINA CON PENNELLO 85x125 cm, 1995- Oil on wood

ALICE NELL'ETA DELLE MERAVIGLIE 100x150cm, 2000. Oil on wood

COILHOUSE

IGIENE ORALE 94x126cm, 2006. OiL on wood

Nl
M
<

INFECT

SENZATITOLO 91x121cm, 2001. Oil on wood

COILHOUSE

"BAD!"

COILHOUSE

"LECHIEN"

PHOTOGRAPHER ALLan Amato (Venus Wept)

MODELS Scar13, Nelly Recchia and Kumi

BODYPAINT Nelly Recchia

MAKEUP Angela Warrick

PINK WARDROBE Mother of London

"SIT"

PEOPLE
AS PETS

Earlier this year, a UK public transit driver pushed
a leash-wearing girl and her boyfriend off his bus,
telling them "no dogs allowed." As people who
regularly hear "hey, freak, Halloween's over!" on the
street, we wanted to sympathize with their plight.
We really did. But between their truly cheesy nu-
gothwear and the pay-attention-to-me "I'm a human
pet" speech to the press, the couple left little room to
be taken seriously. Far from becoming the dignified,
emblematic Rosa Parks of fetish lifestyle choices,
Tasha and her boyfriend have inspired little more than
LOLGOFF image macros. If you're going to represent
the human pet sector of the population, do it with
class! Photographer Allan Amato shows you how.

COILHOUSE

BE YOUR OWN
SUPERVILLAIN

or p another way to survive on Earth

It's Friday night and you're standing in front of a
mirror, seething with frustration. Memories of
your nights out as a teenager surface and you
think backto the people you admired backthen.
They seemed so beautiful and untouchable,
enshrouded in mystery and fantastic clothing —
the epitome of everything you weren't.
Maybe you grew up, got to know them and were
disappointed, or maybe you hoped, fruitlessly,
that growing up would eventually give you their
secret power. Either way, things don't always
turn out. So here you are, in front of the mirror
trying to wrap your head around what it was that
they had that you lack at this very moment, the
thing that set your brain on fire and underpants
aflutter when the cool kids walked by. But
before you go out and get wasted in an act of
defiant defeat, or worse yet, change into your
pajamas for a night of cheese snack-encrusted
Internet perusal, ask yourself, "Why?"
During our formative years we need someone
to support our actions, someone to tell us that
we can accomplish anything we want. As grown
humans we look back on this person when we
need strength, and without such a figure in
our upbringing we're incomplete — at least
according to some psychiatrists.
This need for heroes to inspire us is strong, so
we fall in love with characters from comics,
movies and books. We cling to idealized
superhumans as we're shoved into the world
and forced to function while living less-than-
ideal lives. We adapt, we work, we go out and
try to make the best of it, but even the most
"alternative" job and routine remain just that:
a job and a routine. It's easy to look around and
feel hopelessly bored, but I say that's too damn
easy. I am here to announce a call to arms. It's
time to be your own hero! Unfortunately, actual
heroes tend to be boring, so I offer another
solution. Stop wasting time and take these five
simple steps to life enhancement — to reaching
your full potential as a supervillain.
After all, time is slipping ever so quickly. Away.
Away. There's usually a turning point in the
lives of most villains, something that makes
them, transform from their former everyday
selves into something better. Let this be yours.

Step zero point one: Fancy Robe [not optional] .* This is not to be taken
lightly. Acquire a robe of moderate to extreme fanciness. Proceed.

* Cloaking onerself in a luxurious robe is a must for the state of mind necessary to conduct step one.

1 RESEARCH

Construct a list of people, living, dead and fictional, who inspire you.
Outline their most impressive qualities, no matter how absurd some of
these might be. So, consume something caffeinated and start thinking of
ways you could apply these qualities to yourself along with the particular
superpower you could also apply to yourself. Don't let this take too long,
or you'll never be able to move on to step two. You will continue to expand
this list; all you need for now is a launch pad of ideas. Write a synopsis of
who your enhanced persona is. This may take a while, so have a drink.

2 UNDERSTANDING YOUR MISSION

It's likely that you already have one, or at least one buried deep within
the sticky cobwebs of your brain. Dig it up, that thing you treasure most,
which keeps you up at night. Set goals and decide what you really want and
plow forth like the mighty Potemkin. This will be the demonic fire inside
your villainous soul for which you'll stop at nothing.

3 THE LAIR

All real supervillains have one thing in common: impressive dwellings.
Begin by keeping it clean. Your home is no longer the place that houses
the television or computer you slump at after work, no. It is where your
real work begins. Scheming, plotting, secret projects and devious affairs
happen here, my friend.

The better your homezone represents your inner supervillain, the closer
you are to getting a feel for the supervillain lifestyle. Start small. Replace
trivial items with upgraded ones, even things like toothbrushes come in
colors that might better suit your tastes. Get pens with metallic ink instead
of plain whenever possible; give old pedestrian pens to charity. Persevere,
and soon you'll be coming home to a proper fortress. Do not sell yourself
and your life's work short by living somewhere people can just waltz into
without a glimmer of fear and respect.

4 THE COSTUME

This is a lot like The Lair. No need to spend a fortune right away but
whenever you shop, kindly think of your inner villain. There are a few rules
that apply here. Villains do not wear UGG boots or garments declaring
things like "Sweet n' Tangy" across the ass. And no, it isn't ok if it's black.
You won't find a villain in a trucker hat or blue jeans unless they've been
killed and their corpse displayed in a public place with insults scribbled
across their chest in blood or semen.

Find a way to not compromise this and you're well on your way. Might I
suggest your first major purchases be a well-fitting jacket and a decent pair
of boots? These things will last and enhance anything else you may have in
your (so far) un-villainous wardrobe.

5 THELIVIN'

This is the most important and final part of the metamorphoses. We're
so often faced with lackluster projects and tedium that we must battle
complacency and stagnation full force. For some unthinkable reason
we're forced to trek to jobs, errands and other such nonsense. These
monotonous tasks take up time we'd rather spend on vital missions or
staking out potential adventures. It isn't fair and it makes us bitter cynics
unless we fight to recognize that even this time can be useful and, dare I
say, fulfilling.

Entertain the idea, comrades, that much of your life consists of chores and
less-than-glamorous activities. Take heed, or you will someday find yourself
at death's door - perhaps hanging over a pit of molten lava - remembering
nothing but wasted time and boredom whilst your life flashes before your

eyes. This is not what you want to look back on. Instead you must learn to
make your own adventures. To start, I offer you a two-part plan of action
that guarantees improvement of the bleakest elements of your daily grind:

• Avoid wearing sweatpants outside your lair

• Pay attention to what's happening around you.

Do this and the rest will come.

Boredom and complacency are your chief saboteurs. There is much to
learn and much information to gather at all times. Would you know how
to escape the grocery store if it were set ablaze by one of your nemeses, for
instance? Are you in proper physical shape for a daring rooftop chase if the
need were to arise? What's in that person's pocket? Not to mention the big
questions like, "What have I done this week for my mission?"

If your answer is "I don't care," then your life is wasted and you're in urgent
danger. Fortunately, I'm here to help. Pry yourself free from the clammy
clutches of ennui, get that fancy robe and begin your transformation!

TEXT AND ILLUSTRATION: Zoetica Ebb

CDILHOUSE

COILHOUSE

INFATUATION // IMITATION

recreating runway style within limits of financial sanity

WIPE THE TEARS OF FRUSTATION, RAISE

YOUR HEADS AND WALLETS HIGH:

THERE'S SHIMMERING HOPE YOUR

BUDGET'S HORIZON

PHOTOGRAPHERS Andrew Yoon, Matt Lee, Johnny Quach

They say the Devil's in the details for a reason. If the sight of ruffles,
pleats and folds weakens you, this beautiful concoction by John
Galliano is nearly lethal. Its crimson avalanche of chiffon and satin
is painfully desirable and unattainable to most mere mortals, but all
isn't lost. Wipe the tears of frustration, raise your heads and wallets
high: there's shimmering hope on your budget's horizon. Indeed, a
similar ensemble can be acquired for less than $200.

To begin, break down the look one piece at a time. Find the most crucial
part of the outfit and be willing to spend the most on it. Shop around a
bit, too. While we all love instant gratification, sometimes it isn't worth the
rush. Instead of getting the first "close enough" piece you see, jot down its
location and visit a few more shops. Persevere, and you'll reap the spoils
of fashion victory.

1 JACKET

It would have been a Herculean feat to find a jacket with so much detail on
a budget, but I did locate one of a similar length and with some excellent
draping. While less complex, it's also a bit more practical than Galliano's
ruffle blitz. $80 by Scoop.

C0ILHOUSE

r^ ;

... \

... "- :

a? EflEH

[

^- ,#iw"

Re-soLe budget shoes upon purchase, they'll last longer

There is no cheap substitute for braainnnnss

2 DRESS

The dress is next. The most important details here are the bouncy pleated
ruffles along the bottom, since it could have actually been a skirt from what
we can see in the photo. $40 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles.

3 GLOVES

Side note: While the original outfit didn't call for any, shiny elbow-
length gloves decidedly compliment this dress. A pair happened to be on
sale, so the unexpected purchase did not make much of a dent into the
budget. Besides, almost anything looks better with gloves. $26 at Urban
Outfitters.

4 TIGHTS

Ribbed tights are cheap at Target. The legwear selection there is growing
rapidly and is worth a look — I spotted patterns and fun colors during my
expedition. $7.

5 BOOTS

These slick ankle boots were found for a less than $30. $29.99 at PayLess, a
store about which I can't sing high enough praises.

6 SCARF

A ruffled cotton scarf tops it all off with just a bit more frill and was bought
with the dough I had left over. $12 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles.

TEXT: Zoetica Ebb

COILHOUSE

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PRINT TO FIT

Issue 1: Courtney and Juniper by Paul Komoda

/ ^h^N^ ^

Hey kids! Do you like to cut shapes and color pictures? Then meet the
Coilhouse Paper Dolls. Each issue, we ask a different artist to create a set
of paper dolls and outfits for you to cut out and play with. To kick things
off, artist Paul Komoda tooks a break from drawing/sculpting hideous
monsters to share with us two heroines that appear on the pages of his
sketchbook, in his writing, and on the occasional Yaffa Cafe paper napkin.
On the left is the smoldering Courtney Claveloux (a.k.a. Court-head),
side-by-side with her best friend Juniper Fusion (sometimes referred to by

Courtney as Junitard, or Juni-moo). Courtney has a flair for the dramatic,
while Juniper embraces technology and discipline. Their strange circle
of associates includes the violent, misunderstood and deformed Ricky
Bemular (one of the only Piranha Babies who survived into adulthood,
the product of a genetic experiment gone wrong), mysterious red-haired
ingenue Season Collingswood, morally-ambiguous Professor Genial
Maltese, and Farmer Joseph Past, the Cow-puncher Who Punches Hard
(and his ghost cow).

HAND-ILLUSTRATED BY MADAME TALBOT

http://www.blackphoenixaIchemy lab. com

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